One game. Eleven lead changes. Nine ties. Overtime. A Cunningham performance that deserved to win. A Harden performance that closed it out. A Strus performance that kept Cleveland alive in the moments when the game was slipping away. And a no-call with under two minutes left in regulation that will be debated in Detroit for years. The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons 117-113 in overtime at Little Caesars Arena, taking a 3-2 series lead on the strength of James Harden's 30 points and 6 assists, Evan Mobley's 19 points and 8 assists, Max Strus' 20 points off the bench, and a 23-10 closing run in overtime that turned what had been an absolute knife-fight into a Cleveland road win. Cunningham scored 39 points with 9 assists and 7 rebounds and still lost. Cleveland has now won three straight games after trailing 2-0 in the series. Game 6 is Friday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

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Cleveland Cavaliers 117, Detroit Pistons 113 (OT)

The Pistons had faced elimination three times in these playoffs and survived all three…and they’ll need to replicate that resilience for the next two games if they want to advance to the next round.

Detroit led 103-94 when Tobias Harris hit a corner three off a Paul Reed offensive rebound with 3:29 remaining in regulation. The Pistons were minutes away from securing a win at home with an opportunity to close it out in Game 6, but instead Strus answered immediately with his sixth three of the game — a career playoff high — and Cleveland kept chipping away. Mobley hit a three with 1:22 remaining to cut the deficit to two, then was fouled with 45 seconds left and made both free throws to tie it at 103-103. Overtime.

In the extra period, Cleveland was the team with answers. Mitchell scored five straight to open the Cavaliers' decisive 23-10 run — including a layup off a Strus steal from the backcourt that gave Cleveland a 112-107 lead with 1:48 remaining that the Pistons could never fully erase. Harden hit a free throw with 24.4 seconds left to make it 115-111, grabbed his own miss on the second attempt, was fouled again, and hit one of two for 116-111. Jenkins' 16-point night included one last gutty basket, but the game was over. Harden's 30 points — a number he'd failed to reach once in the first four games of this series — came with 8 rebounds and 6 assists in 44 minutes, the most complete playoff game he has played in Cleveland's uniform.

Mobley's 19 points and 8 assists and 8 rebounds were the complete two-way performance that Atkinson called "his best game of the playoffs." He set up Allen for an alley-oop with a full-court cross-body pass that drew a roar. He defended Detroit's roll men. He scored on drives, mid-range pull-ups, and finishes off Harden's creation — a triple-double missed only because he shot 3-of-4 from the free-throw line on a night when every possession mattered. Strus' 20 points came almost entirely in the moments Cleveland needed them most: multiple threes to close the gap, the two free throws that sent the game to overtime, a steal in the extra period. His seventh career playoff game with five or more threes, all of them in his first season as a Cavalier.

Cunningham's 39 points — on 14-of-27 shooting, with 9 assists, 7 rebounds, and 2 steals — were the finest individual game of his postseason and among the finest of his career. He scored Detroit's first 10 points of overtime before the Cavaliers' run hit. He was magnificent from the opening tip until the final buzzer. Jenkins added 19 off the bench including a third-quarter stretch that kept Detroit alive when the Cavaliers briefly seized momentum. Harris had 13 and Reed 10. But only four Pistons reached double figures, and when Cleveland's closing overtime run arrived with Harden delivering the critical free throws and Mitchell finishing the plays, Detroit's supporting cast couldn't match it possession by possession. They are 0-4 on the road in these playoffs. Cleveland is 6-0 at home. Game 6 is Friday in Cleveland.

CLE leads series 3-2. Game 6 is Friday in Cleveland.

CLE 117 · DET 113 (OT)

The second round has now produced a clean narrative across every remaining series: the teams with the deeper backcourts and the more experienced closers are winning the games that matter most, and the teams without those advantages are fighting with everything available and still coming up short.

Cunningham has been extraordinary in this series — 30-plus points in multiple games, triple-double production, the kind of do-everything performance that defines a franchise player. Detroit has faced elimination multiple times in these playoffs and kept fighting. The Pistons' problem isn't Cunningham. It's that when Cleveland's veterans — Harden, Mitchell, Strus, Mobley — all perform in the same game, the Pistons can't match it from the second unit or the closing lineup. Jenkins has been excellent. Harris has been consistent. The depth gap shows in overtime. It showed Wednesday night.

The Cavaliers go home for Game 6 with an opportunity to send Mitchell to his first Conference Finals. If the pattern holds, the series ends Friday and Cleveland advances to the Eastern Conference Finals to face New York. If Cunningham has another 39-point response in him at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, nothing is certain — but Detroit has not won there once in this series. The one thing Wednesday confirmed is that this series has been genuinely worthy of the first-round narrative that preceded it. Both teams have given everything they have.

Stud of the Day: James Harden, Cleveland Cavaliers — 30 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists in 44 minutes with the crucial free throws in overtime that secured the lead the Cavaliers never relinquished. After three and a half games as a secondary figure to Mitchell, Harden was the most important Cavalier in the moments that mattered Wednesday. That's what this series needed from him and he delivered it.

Dud of the Night: Detroit Pistons (team) — Cunningham scored 39. Jenkins had 19. The rest of the Pistons combined for 55 points across 53 minutes of basketball at home in a game they controlled for significant stretches. Harris, Reed, Robinson, Duren, Stewart — the supporting cast that showed up in the first round — couldn't sustain itself against Cleveland's closing overtime lineup. Detroit now trails 2-3 and must win Game 6 in Cleveland, where the Cavaliers are 6-0 in these playoffs.