After he brought the team back to respectability, the Cleveland Cavaliers fired their old coach J.B. Bickerstaff in 2024. Since then, he’s turned the Detroit Pistons around, who are still 21-6 after a last-second overtime loss to the Dallas Mavericks Thursday, 116-114. They’re leading the Eastern Conference, while the Cavs have lost seven of their last 10 games. Bickerstaff won 170 games with the Cavaliers after taking over as head coach in 2020, losing his job after the Boston Celtics defeated them in the second round of the playoffs in five games. Cleveland won 64 under new coach Kenny Atkinson last season, but the season ended the same way: a five-game loss in the second round. The 46-year-old Bickerstaff got his first head-coaching opportunity in the 2015-16 season, when the Houston Rockets dismissed Kevin McHale after a 4-7 start. He went 37-34 and got the Rockets to the playoffs, before they replaced him with Mike D’Antoni the next season. Bickerstaff moved on to the Memphis Grizzlies, where he took ov
