Daniss Jenkins buried a 3-pointer at the third-quarter horn in Game 7, and the Detroit Pistons finished off the Orlando Magic with the kind of shot that can change a season. Detroit, which had trailed 3-1 in the series, completed the comeback Sunday and won its first playoff series since 2008.
The 24-year-old guard had 19 points in the clincher, another mark in a postseason run that has turned him from a short-term call-up into one of Detroit's most trusted backcourt pieces. The Pistons had brought Jenkins up when Jaden Ivey's leg injury left them thin on guard depth at the start of the 2025-26 season, and he kept forcing his way into bigger minutes by doing the same things he had done at every stop: score, pass and keep pressure on the other team.
That has not always been how his career was supposed to go. Jenkins signed a standard NBA contract with Detroit in February, after a long climb that took him through the University of the Pacific, Odessa College, Iona, St. John's and the G League's Motor City Cruise. He led Pacific in scoring as a sophomore, averaged 15 points and 5.3 assists at Odessa College, earned All-MAAC second-team honors at Iona and made the Big East second team at St. John's. For Motor City, he averaged 21 points and seven assists, and he made enough noise in predraft workouts last year to get noticed even though he was not taken in the second round.
Jenkins' rise became even more important when Cade Cunningham missed three weeks in March and April with a punctured lung. Over a 12-game span without Cunningham, Jenkins averaged 18.6 points and 7.6 assists while shooting 45% from 3, and Detroit went 9-3 during that stretch. The Pistons also clinched the franchise's first No. 1 seed since 2007, and Jenkins helped fuel that push with a 16-point, 14-assist performance against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 4 that secured the conference's best record.
After that game, Jenkins said, “The stuff I've been doing here, I've always been doing it.” He added that it was not as if he had been waiting for the team to let him shine. Those words fit what teammates and coaches have seen since his arrival. One assistant coach said, “He works hard and he talks s---.” Ausar Thompson, who first met him at Detroit's summer league team in 2024, called him “super vocal, super competitive, and he was cold.” Thompson also said Jenkins would fit anywhere, adding, “He'd be fine on this team. One thousand percent. Everyone on this team knew.”
Detroit's run carries larger weight because the team is still chasing its first Finals appearance since 2005. Jenkins was once a former G League call-up who appeared only in a handful of mop-up games before moving into the rotation, but the Pistons needed him once injuries thinned the guard room and the pressure rose. He answered in the moments that mattered most. On Sunday, he answered again.
