Pistons keep climbing, tie ’90 and ’04 champs with 13th straight win

The Pistons used to be the team everyone circled on the schedule. A free win. A skid extender. A breather.

Now? They’re the ones doing the streaking.

Detroit tied a franchise record on Monday with its 13th straight win, hanging on late to beat the Pacers 122-117 and move to 15-2.

That puts them alongside the ’90 champs and the ’04 champs. Rare territory.

And for a franchise that hit rock bottom just two years ago — yes, the infamous three-and-36 start and 28 straight losses — this is something out of a basketball fever dream.

“It’s amazing,” Cade Cunningham told reporters, via the AP. “We play for the Detroit Pistons, man. A historic franchise. So to make history for a franchise like this, it’s special.”

Cunningham looked the part again, going for 24 points, 11 boards and six assists.

Jalen Duren added 17 and 12. Caris LeVert chipped in 19. And Jaden Ivey, slowly ramping back up after missing 10 months with a broken fibula, gave them 12 in 12 minutes.

Indiana, meanwhile, looked every bit like a team that played into June. Tough, scrappy, and almost good enough to steal it after trailing by 18 in the fourth. Almost.

But at 2-15, the Pacers are finding out the hard way that it’s a different league right now.

The Pistons? They’ve found a rhythm, a confidence, and maybe an edge that hadn’t been there since the days of Isiah Thomas and the Bad Boys.

And yes, fittingly, Boston is back in the way again. Detroit heads to TD Garden on Wednesday for an NBA Cup matchup with a chance to break the record outright.

Cunningham wasn’t thrilled with the near-collapse late, though.

“We shouldn’t have allowed them to get back into the game like that,” he said. “So watch the film, be sick about the film, but work from it, learn from it and get better.”

That’s the scary part. They’re winning. And they still think they can clean it up.