As the clock ticked to zero in the OT period of Thursday’s game in Los Angeles, the Lakers had successfully held off the Washington Wizards with a final score of 134-131. The Lakers avoided being “that team” to lose to the Wizards who now find themselves in the midst of a 13 game losing streak.

Why is a Pistons blogger talking about this fairly pedestrian game at all? Simple, with this loss, Detroit is no longer in 15th place in the Eastern Conference. That’s right, despite losing a single-season NBA record 28 games in a row, the Washington Wizards now hold the worst record in the East over Detroit.

It’s generally been a season-long narrative surrounding the two teams. The Pistons have been seen as the better of all the total shit teams in 2023-2024’s bottom-dwellers who are literally the worst bad teams the league has ever seen as a bunch. The Wizards with Detroit rejects Marvin Bagley III and Isaiah Livers (out for the season with a hip injury…shocker) have been losing the wrong way, getting blown out and getting blown out badly time after time with Jordan Poole posting lowlights along the way. Similar issues have struck the Charlotte Hornets and San Antonio Spurs, with the latter of those two having made some strides off the back of Victor Wembanyama’s unavoidable talent and alienesque size at the PF position.

What does the rest of the season look like in Detroit? Are we back in the bottom after Cleveland’s visit to LCA tomorrow? Probably. What I can say quite confidently from my armchair is that Detroit looks good for a 9 win team, they look on the upswing and look to be playing with heart. The other teams fighting for the wooden spoon are playing poorly, struggling and teetering out toward the finish.

I predict Detroit finishes out the season closer to .500 in their remaining games than not. At the very least I do not expect Detroit to be in 15th in the East. That’ll likely belong to Washington or Charlotte.

I used to pray for times like these.