DENVER — The Detroit Pistons couldn’t buy a bucket in the first half against the Golden State Warriors on Friday. Cade Cunningham wasn’t immune to the team’s offensive struggles.

The 22-year-old missed five of his first seven shots, and entered halftime with nine points on 11 shot attempts. The Pistons, who trailed by four, needed more. Coach Monty Williams had little doubt he would come through.

“Cade just has an ability, even if he doesn’t play as well as he wants to in the first half, I told the coaches at halftime he’ll turn it on,” Williams said after the game. “That’s just what he did in the second half.”

Cunningham came out on fire, scoring 21 points in the second half — including 15 in the fourth quarter on 6-for-6 shooting to lead a late Pistons rally after the team fell behind by 11 points. He finished the 113-109 loss with 30 points on 13-for-22 (59.1%) shooting.

The Warriors were unable to keep him out of the paint, as he maneuvered around their bigs and bullied smaller defenders. It continued the best stretch of basketball of Cunningham’s career. For more than a month, he has been among the Eastern Conference’s best playmakers and scorers.

It’s a silver lining in a season that has few. After Friday’s loss — the Pistons' NBA-worst 32nd this season with just three wins — Cunningham is averaging 23.4 points, 7.4 assists, 4.1 rebounds and a steal while shooting 45.1% overall, 33.3% from 3 and 87% at the foul line. He’s averaging career-highs nearly across the board, and is by far in his most efficient stretch.

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“We came into that timeout and told everybody just to calm down,” Williams said of the team early in the second half. “Get back to our level of poise. Then he just started making the right reads. They were getting a bit confused with our sideline pick-and-roll action with the screen. He’s starting to read where the snap guy gets to the wing, or he can get downhill and the other side is (Jalen Duren), who is a really good screen-setter. It’s Cade’s ability to get downhill, coupled with (Bojan Bogdanovic) in the snap action and JD at the rim.”

Cunningham, coming off season-ending shin surgery a year ago, started his third season slowly. Through the first 18 games, he shot just 40.6% overall and averaged 4.4 turnovers per game against seven assists. His inefficiency as the lead option, along with his playmaking struggles, led to questions concerning his candidacy as a franchise player.

He was certainly mistake-prone early on, and still has the occasional head-scratching turnover. But he also suffered from lack of spacing, with Bogdanovic out and the other shooters on the roster slumping. Opponents aggressively blitzed him and packed the paint. The Pistons weren’t able to hit enough shots from outside to open clearer lanes for Cunningham.

Since Nov. 30 — a game before Bogdanovic returned — Cunningham has been a different player. He’s averaging 25.1 points, 7.8 assists and 3.4 turnovers while shooting 50.2% overall. In that 17-game stretch, his true shooting percentage of 59.4% ranks between Stephen Curry (59.6%) and Devin Booker (59.1%).

It’s not a coincidence Cunningham’s play improved since Bogdanovic made his season debut Dec. 2. The veteran sharpshooter is the team's second-leading scorer, averaging 19.8 points while knocking down 38.7% of his 3-pointers. Teams can’t blitz Cunningham as easily with a second proven offensive threat alongside him.

It has given Cunningham validation — proof the offseason work he put in can pay off, at least from a personal standpoint. Friday was his fifth time in six games, and sixth in nine games, cracking the 30-point threshold. That includes the two highest-scoring games of his career — 43 points (on 66.7% shooting), seven assists, five rebounds and three steals on the road against the Atlanta Hawks, and 41 points (on 71.4% shooting), nine rebounds and five assists at home against the Brooklyn Nets, both losses.

“I’m steadily growing,” Cunningham said Friday. “I feel the growth. Reaching those different markers, having 40-point games, something that I had never done. It gives you something to look at to feel it out. Sometimes that’s all it takes, is just feeling it for the first time. And then you know what it takes.”

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But he hasn’t achieved his most important marker for success, which is winning games. Despite his big numbers, the Pistons have continued to lose at a rapid pace. Their historic 28-game losing streak, snapped against the Toronto Raptors on Dec. 30, has been followed by another three-game skid, with the Denver Nuggets waiting Sunday.

And that’s at the top of his mind. The Pistons made the same old mistakes against the Warriors, turning the ball over and lacking defensive grit during key possessions. Cunningham has been self-critical, acknowledging the team has a lot of work ahead to turn things around.

“It’s validating, but it’s not validating because it hasn’t translated to a win yet,” he said. “That’s the validation I’m looking for, what it takes to pull out wins.”

The losing streak forced Cunningham to find ways to help the team outside of the court. He has been the de facto team spokesman for the media in recent weeks, explaining where they’ve fallen short. In the locker room, he has been a consistent encouraging voice.

He’s backing up the talk, and it gives the team confidence that, if things eventually turn around, Cunningham will be a primary part of the solution.

“Cade Cunningham has been tremendous in his leadership, in that regard,” Williams said. “He’s probably done more than myself. The assistant coaches spend more time with the players in one-on-one situations than I do, and I hear stuff indirectly, and I do what I can. If anything, it’s probably a group effort. Cade has really stepped up in his leadership.”

Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him @omarisankofa.

Next up: Nuggets

Matchup: Pistons (3-32) at Denver (25-12).

Tipoff: 8 p.m. Sunday; Ball Arena, Denver.

TV/radio: Bally Sports Detroit; WWJ-AM (950).

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pistons' Cade Cunningham playing like a star. Time to deliver wins.