In his first game in three weeks since suffering a collapsed lung, Cade Cunningham posted a double-double and played a breezy 26 minutes as the Pistons cruised past the Bucks in Detroit's home finale of the regular season.
Cunningham finished with 13 points and 10 assists and went 6-for-11 from the field in the Pistons' 137-111 win.
"I felt really good," he said. "I feel like I got some really good cardio in today, everything felt good. I felt like all the training and stuff I’ve been doing had me in a great place where I was comfortable for all of my minutes."
Cade Cunningham on NBA’s 65-game rule that will disqualify him from end-of-season awards after losing 3 weeks to collapsed lung. He’s on track to play in 64.
Respects the spirit of it “because fans pay a lot of money to come watch us play games,” but hoping for an exception: pic.twitter.com/INHyMP24f0
— 97.1 The Ticket: (@971theticketxyt) April 9, 2026
Cunningham will have two more games to knock off some rust, and then some further time to rest before the playoffs start for the Pistons, who clinched the top seed in the East without him. His absence could have been a blessing in disguise, allowing the Pistons' star to recharge his body before gearing up for a run in the playoffs.
It was on March 17 that Cunningham took a knee to the back while diving for a loose ball in a game against the Wizards. What was originally deemed a back injury turned out to be a collapsed left lung, known formally as a pneumothorax. For Cunningham, the recovery was psychological as much as physical at times.
"It was different than any injury I’ve ever had as far as how it progressed initially from when I got hit to how I felt immediately and then to how I started to feel as time went on," he said. "Just thanks to all the staff and medical that was around and helped me through that time. I was kind of beat up and I was panicking a lot, just with what I was feeling and stuff, so they helped get me comfortable and helped me get me through that."
Ron Holland bombs Cade Cunningham’s press conference after Cade’s return 😂
“That’s Ron over there. Go home, man. Drive safe.”
“Welcome back, bro, welcome back!” pic.twitter.com/h6yqJLhQH3
— 97.1 The Ticket: (@971theticketxyt) April 9, 2026
Once Cunningham was released from the hospital and returned home, rehab called for a lot of rest.
"Couldn’t get my heart rate up, which was boring. Heart rate went up a few times watching the team," he said with a smile, "but it was fun to be able to watch from a different perspective like that. I think I learned a lot, and watching the team grow the way they did and handle business the way they did was a lot of fun."
But make no mistake: Cunningham is glad to be back. He was growing tired of sitting around, especially in the midst of the best season of his young career and the best season for the Pistons in two decades. The recovery was necessarily slow.
"When there’s a puncture in your lung, there’s no pain receptors or anything, so I can’t feel that it’s healed or not," Cunningham explained. "I just have to go off my X-Rays and seeing the progress of how much my lung re-inflated. And it got to a point where on pictures it did, but you still have to allow that puncture wound to scab over, and you have to allow that scab to mature. You can’t go back to heavy cardio or else it could re-collapse, and that would have been not good — really not good.
"They wanted to be careful about it, I wanted to be careful about it and make sure that everything was good for me to be able to go full speed and be able to be myself whenever I came back."
Cunningham looked like himself Thursday night, while hardly breaking a sweat. He didn't shoot much, and didn't drive much, but he didn't have to. He agreed that the silver lining of the situation is that he'll be fresh for the playoffs, along with big man Isaiah Stewart, who also returned to the lineup agains the Bucks.
"Having the time off has definitely allowed other things to heal up that I was dealing with," Cunningham said. "You’re always playing with something, so having time off has allowed me to get stronger and heal things up that I probably wouldn’t have had the time to do if I was continuing to play.
"And more than anything is just having that new perspective on the team, watching the team from the couch. I think it’s been good, for me and (Isaiah Stewart), for us to be healthy going into the playoffs I think will put is in a good position, and I think this allowed that to happen."
