Deep Dive Into Cade Cunningham's Recent Struggles

Cade Cunningham will make one of the All-NBA teams at the end of this NBA season. Cunningham has had an incredible break-out season, leading the Detroit Pistons to a season not many expected was possible.

Cade is great.

Cade has also really struggled from the floor recently.

Over the last two games, losses to the Washington Wizards and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cunningham has shot 32 percent from the floor and zero percent from three, going 0 of his last 11 from deep. The garnish for these struggles was an ejection in the third quarter of the Pistons' loss to the Thunder.

Is Cunningham just in a slump shooting-wise? Are defenses changing their coverage and frustrating him? What has led to such poor play from the field the last two games?

Let’s break it down.

By far, the biggest culprit in Cunningham’s struggles has been the betrayal of his outside shot. He has now fallen to under 35 percent from beyond the arc. Until February 23rd, Cunningham was shooting 36.3 percent from deep on 6.4 attempts. He was shooting 40.2 percent on catch-and-shoot threes and 34.2 percent off-the-dribble threes on heavy volume (4.2 attempts).

Since February 23rd, the Pistons’ last 11 games, Cunningham has shot 26.8 percent from deep, a woeful 29 percent on catch-and-shoot threes, and 20.7 percent on off-the-dribble threes.

Cunningham is getting clean looks from beyond the arc, but has just gone cold. The ability to make defenses pay for playing drop coverage in pick-and-roll with pull-up threes, along with anytime the defense goes under the screen, had wholly opened up Cunningham’s game.

In the clip above, the Pistons set up an action for Cunningham off the ball. Starting in the weakside corner, Cunningham sprints into a dribble-handoff with Isaiah Stewart, giving him an instant advantage over Lu Dort. Dort responds by going under the screen from Stewart, not showing any real urgency to return to Cunningham’s body.

Cunningham gets another wide-open three attempt, but is incapable of hitting it. The Thunder guarded Cunningham like a team that didn’t believe his pull-up three-point shooting would hurt them, making it harder to open up other avenues for his game.

Another example of this above. Cunningham will flow into a pick-and-roll with Stewart on the left wing. Cason Wallace is going to go over but gets stuck on the screen. Jaylin Williams stays in drops coverage and allows Cunningham to walk right into an open three-point shot. A shot Cunningham had been hitting all year, has escaped him as of late.

Once Cunningham gets over this cold streak from beyond the arc, that will solve many of the problems he’s had the last few games.

And to be fair, Cunningham wasn’t precisely struggling before these two games despite his three-point shot not being there. In the previous five games before this stretch, Cunningham averaged 30.4 points, with 63 percent true shooting, despite shooting under 30 percent from deep.

This leads us to the following reason why Cunningham has struggled lately.

When shooting this poorly from deep, you must feel almost automatic on two-pointers and get to the free throw line to maintain that efficiency level as a high-usage guard. During that five-game stretch, Cunningham was doing precisely that—shooting 63 percent on all two-pointers while getting to the free throw-line 6.8 times per game.

Cunningham was getting to his spots and finding the sweet spot for his floater, and we discussed last week how much this was elevating his efficiency.

During the last few games, Cunningham needed these types of shots to fall if he would struggle this badly from beyond the arc. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case.

In the clip above, nothing complex happens. Cunningham goes around a Jalen Duren screen, with his defender trailing him on his drive. Cunningham can reach his sweet spot and elevate for an uncontested nine-foot floater. He misses, but this is a good generated shot for the Pistons star.

I *love* this shot Cunningham generates for himself against the Thunder. As Cunningham crosses half-court to his right hand, Malik Beasley sets a ghost screen and flares out to the weak side, which puts Alex Caruso in a position to jump over the screen immediately.

Another screen is set up for Cunningham to use going to his strong hand, but instead, he rejects the screen and uses a sick behind-the-back dribble to lose the star defender. Cunningham uses a bit of a hop dribble and slows down to keep Caruso on his back, and the drop defender uncertain of his next move.

Before dribbling himself into traffic or forcing an incredibly tough look at the rim, Cunningham gets to his sweet spot around the dotted line and elevates for a nice-looking floater. Cunningham’s length allows him to get a clean look off, and this is another good process, a good generated shot that doesn’t fall.

OKC has the best defensive rating in the entire NBA by *more than three points*. Their point of attack defense with Dort, Caruso, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Jalen Williams, combined with the speed and length on the backside, make it incredibly hard for *anyone* to get off against them.

But, in the clip above, you watch Cunningham thoroughly cook Dort with a double crossover. Cunningham uses the threat of the rescreen from Stewart to keep Dort on edge, and the second crossover to his right completely loses the defender. Cunningham flows into a beautiful Kobe-esque looking mid-range pull-up, a shot he hits all the time, but again misses the shot.

The point? There weren’t many times the Thunder forced Cunningham into a shot he either didn’t want to take or doesnt hit most of the time. Despite shooting so poorly in this game, Cunningham got to the spots he wanted and primarily generated shots he brings every game.

There were few instances when OKC’s defense baited Cunningham into making the wrong decision, but it wasn’t perfect for the Pistons star guard.

In the clip above, Cunningham uses a screen from Duren to drive to his left. Caruso does an NFL running back spin to immediately get around the screen and re-attach to Cunningham’s body. Cunningham tries to speed up, thinking he’s lost Caruso, and picks up his dribble 15 feet from the basket to attack Isaiah Hartenstein at the rim.

It was a bad decision to not only pick up his dribble so far from the basket—which was one-hundred percent going to lead to an incredibly tough finish through a great rim protector—but also Cunningham doesn’t feel the defender on his back, which allows Caruso to get the chase down block.

Isaiah Joe is digging at the potential dump-off to Duren, which makes that a difficult pass. Ron Holland is open for the corner three, though I understand the unwillingness to make this pass. Cunningham commits too early in the possession here to this drive. If he feels Caruso better here, backing out of the drive and re-screening with Duren is a much better option.

All-around challenging play from Cunningham, made even more arduous by the Thunder’s personnel on the defensive end of the floor.

Here’s another play where OKC baits Cunningham into a difficult shot. Cunningham uses a filthy in-n-out hesitation cross over to lose Dort at the point of attack and generate a paint touch. Cunningham gets to just above the charge circle, where he meets Hartenstein again at the rim.

It looks like Cunningham makes a reasonable adjustment, jumping to his side to create a finishing angle around Hartenstein. However, the Pistons have two players in the paint with Cunningham: Ausar Thompson and Duren. This means SGA is in the perfect help position to deny this shot attempt, something Cunningham looked unaware of.

The right decision here was to pass the ball to Duren after getting Hartenstein to commit, which would have led to an easy Duren dunk. The spacing in this play affected Cunningham, and he didn’t adjust to it after the initial great move on Dort. Tim Hardaway Jr also does a good job of relocating beyond the arc after Wallace digs at the drive—Cunningham had this outlet pass off the drive, too.

Overall, though, Cunningham got to his spots and the shots he wanted throughout the night. There were points where OKC’s defense won the possession, which will happen throughout a 48-minute game against a defense like OKC, but Cunningham will watch this film back and say to himself, “ I just gotta hit shots”.

Cunningham is in a bit of a cold slump from the field and the three-point shot has been hard to come by the last 11 games. Despite that, the process of Cunningham’s offense has remained unchanged, generating good shots for himself. Some may want to think it’s deeper than just “he isn’t hitting shots right now”, but that’s mostly what it is.

Good process will lead to good results, as it has for 90 percent of Cade’s season.

What cannot happen for Cunningham is for him to allow the refs to affect his game, though. The last few weeks, Cunningham has been much more on edge with the officials. While he has reason to be upset with the whistle the Pistons get, which J.B. Bickerstaff did a great job of relaying after the loss to OKC, Cunningham can’t allow the refs to affect his decision-making.

Cunningham is also playing the most he has played within a season, carrying some of the highest usage in the league, towards the end of a wild season. Not an excuse here, simply mentioning Cunningham could be hitting a wall and could be a reason for his outside shot being so cold recently.

If that’s the case, Cunningham has time to break through that wall before the playoffs start. This is part of the process of becoming a superstar.

But, Cunningham is not doing anything different. OKC didn’t find a secret formula for stopping Cunningham, Washington didn’t use some wizardry to stop Cunningham (get it get it?), the star guard is just in a shooting slump.

The process remains good, and Cade Cunningham is fine.

Pistons fans take a breath.