The Detroit Pistons preceded the Orlando Magic at Cleveland’s downtown Ritz-Carlton hotel by a few hours over the weekend.



By all accounts, no one wearing Pistons red and blue turned off the hot water at the hotel, stole all the bacon and eggs or unleashed cans of bedbugs into the rooms upon checkout, though one could understand if they did.



Through a coincidence of the NBA’s master schedule, the Pistons and Magic, two of the teams jockeying to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, blew through Cleveland on the same, blustery first weekend in March. They stayed at the same hotel, yes, but that’s about where the similarities of their experiences ended.



The Pistons, who flew east for about 25 minutes from suburban Detroit to Cleveland’s Hopkins Airport, steamrolled a Cavs team by 36 points on the night Cleveland picked to sit Kevin Love, its best player.



The Magic, meanwhile, got to the Ritz at 1 a.m. after beating the...