Detroit Pistons forward Tobias Harris (12) reads to a basket scored against the Orlando Magic by guard Cade Cunningham (2) during the second half in Game 5 of a first-round NBA playoffs series Wednesday in Detroit. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson)

DETROIT (AP) — Cade Cunningham came through for the Pistons when they needed him. With Detroit teetering on the brink of elimination, Cunningham outdueled Orlando’s Paolo Banchero in a sensational scoring matchup of former No. 1 overall picks.

Cunningham had a franchise playoff-record 45 points and the top-seeded Pistons held off the eighth-seeded Magic for a 116-109 win on Wednesday night in Game 5 of their first-round series, avoiding elimination for now.

“We dug ourselves a hole and now it’s time to climb our way out,” Cunningham said. “It’s possible.”

Orlando leads the series 3-2 and will get a second chance to advance at home tonight. If the Pistons win their first road game of the series, they will host a decisive Game 7 on Sunday.

Banchero also scored 45 points for a playoff career high — but missed 7 of 12 free throws — and fell one point short of equaling the franchise postseason record shared by Tracy McGrady and Dwight Howard.

Cunningham set a single-game playoff scoring record for Detroit that had stood since Dave Bing had 44 points in 1968. Isiah Thomas approached that mark with a 43-point performance in 1988.

In NBA history there was only one other playoff game with two players scoring 45 or more.

Donovan Mitchell scored 51 points for Utah in a win over Denver in 2020, while the Nuggets’ Jamal Murray had 50 points.

The Pistons are hoping to bounce back from the brink of elimination as they did against the Magic two-plus decades ago.

Detroit’s comeback in 2003 as a No. 1 seed against eighth-seeded Orlando was the first of seven times NBA teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit this century. The Nuggets were the last team to pull off the feat six years ago — in the same series that featured Mitchell and Murray each scoring 50-plus point — and they became the first team in the league to do it twice in one postseason.