Jalen Williams missed the entire road trip to stay back in OKC. He rehabbed a hip strain. The meat of that trip was a high-intense 113-107 win over the Detroit Pistons. Down Williams, the Thunder were also without Holmgren and Aaron Wiggins. They lost Lu Dort and Ousmane Dieng during the game to injuries.

After Alex Caruso compared Cade Cunningham to Luka Doncic, Dort and Wallace limited the Pistons All-Star guard to 11 points on 5-of-18 attempts. At the same time, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had his fourth 40+ point performance in six tries.