Detroit Pistons middle Isaiah Stewart has suffered a grade 1 left calf strain, eradicating the important thing reserve massive man from the combination in the intervening time because the East-leading Pistons look to safe their grasp on the convention’s No. 1 seed heading into the 2026 NBA playoffs.
The 24-year-old will likely be re-evaluated in one week, which means he’ll miss at least 4 video games. The Pistons are in D.C. this week for a pair of contests towards the Wizards on Tuesday and Thursday, adopted by dwelling tilts towards the Warriors and Lakers.
Advertisement
Stewart performed 20 minutes in Detroit’s 126-110 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday — his seventh recreation again after lacking the earlier seven whereas suspended for his role in a Feb. 9 fight between the Pistons and Charlotte Hornets — chipping in 10 factors, 4 rebounds (3 offensive), 1 help and 1 block. But Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff didn’t like the best way his sometimes energetic backup middle was transferring.
[Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem: Fill out brackets for your shot at $50K]
“It’s something that he’s been dealing with,” Bickerstaff stated earlier than Sunday’s 119-108 loss to the Toronto Raptors, in accordance to Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press. “It just had been kinda getting worse. He gutted it out last game and you could see he was favoring it and he was hobbling around a little bit late in his minutes.”
With All-Star middle Jalen Duren manning the center within the beginning 5 and third-string massive man Paul Reed eminently able to moving into a bigger position, the Pistons have fared nicely with out Stewart this season. They’ve gone 9-3 with him out of the lineup, outscoring opponents by a stellar 11.8 points per 100 possessions with him off the floor — numbers that instill confidence that the Pistons, who enter Tuesday’s motion with a 3.5-game lead over the Boston Celtics for first place within the East, ought to find a way to maintain a agency grasp on their spot atop the convention with Stewart sidelined.
Advertisement
Even so: A Detroit crew that has been a bit wobbly of late — 5 losses within the final eight video games, together with defeats to the Western energy Spurs and potential Eastern playoff opponents Miami, Cleveland and Toronto — might miss Stewart’s … nicely, you may not name it a steadying presence, precisely. But all season lengthy, these Pistons have received largely on the energy of their protection and physicality, and Stewart’s potential to lock down the lane has performed a major half within the growth of the NBA’s No. 2 defensive unit.
Detroit opponents take simply 26.3% of their subject purpose makes an attempt at the rim when Stewart’s within the recreation, in accordance to Cleaning the Glass — a mark that may rank second within the NBA over the course of the complete season. They convert simply 58.8% of those attempts in his minutes; that may be the lowest point-blank percentage in the league.
And that features all inside tries throughout Stewart’s minutes. Drill down into simply those the place he himself is the closest defender, and opponents are capturing a cataclysmic 43.2% at the basket when Beef Stew contests, in accordance to Second Spectrum — far and away the bottom mark amongst 237 gamers to guard at least 100 such up-close tries, and even stingier than final season’s 46% success price (which ranked second in the league, behind solely Chet Holmgren).
Advertisement
“I’m not 7-foot, I’m not 7-2, I’m not 7-3,” Stewart just lately told James Herbert of CBS Sports. “The fact that I am who I am and they see me at the rim and they defer, I think it’s a respect thing. […] Not everybody’s driving in looking to score every time because of my presence and my timing on taking dunks out the air. I don’t see anybody around the league that’s an undersized center that’s able to time dunks, take dunks out the air. It does something for us. It builds momentum and it sends us heading in the right direction the other way.”
That degree of inside influence, mixed with Stewart’s flexibility and flexibility as a change defender on the perimeter, would make him a robust candidate for a spot on one of many two All-Defensive groups come season’s finish … if he’d performed sufficient to qualify.
Advertisement
While the sixth-year veteran has appeared in 55 video games this season, solely 49 of them “count,” underneath the (*1*); he has played fewer than 20 minutes eight times, and the NBA solely permits gamers to depend two contests by which they performed between 15 and 20 minutes towards their year-end whole. As such, as Herbert noted, Stewart wanted to play in each remaining Pistons recreation, and to play at least 20 minutes in all of them, so as to qualify for All-Defensive honors; lacking Sunday’s loss to Toronto, then, eradicated him from the operating.
The silver lining to that specific grey cloud: If there’s no urgent cause to maintain sending Stewart again on the market to protect his eligibility, the Pistons can afford to use no matter time they want over the subsequent month to get him proper. Detroit can proceed with warning in managing an harm that has grow to be one of the NBA’s most common and most daunting, in hopes of guaranteeing that Stewart — who missed the ultimate 5 video games of Detroit’s 2025 NBA playoffs loss to the New York Knicks with a proper knee harm — can keep on the court docket this postseason.
“It’s something we’re going to take time with,” Bickerstaff said Sunday. “Those are things you don’t want to mess around with. I can’t give you a timeline because we’ll always try to see how he responds. The most important thing for us is that he gets well, so we’ll take our time and make sure that he’s well.”
