Having won two of their first three matches this season, the Pistons continued their losing run on Boxing Day as they went down 118-112.
They will match the overall record of 28 defeats – set by the Philadelphia 76ers across two seasons in 2015 – if they lose at the Boston Celtics, who have the NBA’s best record, on Thursday.
Beleagured Pistons fans, who have repeatedly called on owner Tom Gores to sell the team, were given hope of ending the run as they opened a 14-point lead in the first quarter.
Having surrendered that advantage to trail 61-54 at half-time, they hit back to lead 97-92 in the fourth quarter as Cade Cunningham scored 41 points.
Thirteen straight points from the Nets swung the game their way and secured the Pistons an unwanted place in the record books.
The Pistons, who broke the single-season record on Tuesday against Brooklyn Nets, forced overtime before going down to their 28th consecutive loss.
Defeat to the team with the league’s best record equals the record of the Philadelphia 76ers across two seasons in 2015.
Detroit did lead by 21 points in the first half, but needed a score from Bojan Bogdanovic to send the game into the first overtime of the losing streak.
Derrick White scored 10 points in the extra period as the Celtics pulled away. Cade Cunningham led Detroit with 31 points.
Toronto are next up for Detroit on Saturday as they look to avoid taking sole ownership of the record.
Detroit went down 118-112 to the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday, etching their name into the NBA records books in the process.
The Pistons have now lost more games successively in a single season than any other team in the history of the competition. The Philadelphia 76ers hold the overall record, with 28 straight defeats, though that skid was spread over the 2014-15 and 2015-16 campaigns.
And Cunningham, who had 41 points, says there is nothing positive to glean from the scenario.
"I don't think what I said was positivity, I think it's just being real," Cunningham told reporters after attempting to rally the Pistons troops in the locker room.
"There's nothing positive about this situation right now that we put ourselves in, so that's why we have to dig deep and get ourselves out of it.
"You can't get away from it. It weighs on us every day, I mean everywhere. It weighs on us."
Coach Monty Williams said he shoulders the blame.
"Again, when you look at records, you think of coaches, but I'm sure the players don't want that attached to the name on the jersey," he said.
"Was it heavy? It's been heavy for a while. That's just the nature of this kind of losing streak and it's not gonna change because we're grading the level of it, we've got to do what we've got to do to change it.
"Nobody wants this kind of thing attached to them. I was brought in here to change this thing and it's probably the most on me than anybody. The players are playing their hearts out, I’ve got to put them in a position where they don’t feel tight or heavy but it’s where we are – that’s the reality of the situation.
"I don't think anyone in our locker room has been through this. I don't have a reference point. I've been through tough playoff losses, and this is relative to that. When you lose a playoff game, this kind of feels like that.
"Basketball is a body of work you take a lot of pride in, and you take pride because you want to win. We just haven't done that."
Detroit's fans made their feelings known during the game, chanting "Sell the team!"
It was a chant that did not sit well with the Pistons' Jaden Ivey, who said: "We have the right people in this locker room and most importantly, I just heard the fans talking about sell the team and just in my mind it's like what we talked about, who is with us? Whose really with us?"
"The crowd was amazing, I thought, but there's some that [I'm wondering] who is really with us?
"Chanting 'sell the team,' I thought it was a bit much because we're growing and obviously the record and a lot of people expected us to be better in this upcoming point of the season, but we're gonna continue to row the boat and we're gonna forget what everybody else says, stay together and play for each other."
Next up for the Pistons is a clash with the league-leading Boston Celtics on Thursday.
The Pistons went down 119-111 to the short-handed Utah Jazz on Thursday.
That means Detroit are just one defeat away from matching the single-season record for consecutive losses, which is shared by the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers and 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers, while the latter hold the outright record for successive defeats, having lost 28 straight games across the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.
Cunningham, though, believes the Pistons still have the quality to turn matters around.
"We're not 2-26 bad, no way are we that bad," said Cunningham, who finished with a double-double of 28 points and 10 assists.
"I think we can turn this around. We can play a much better brand of basketball.
"We had a chance to win it down the stretch, and we just weren't solid enough.
"This is history no one wants to be a part of."
While Cunningham was upbeat ahead of Saturday's meeting with the Brooklyn Nets, coach Monty Williams had to hold his tongue.
"I want to be careful with my words, because this one hurts more than most of them," Williams said.
"A team that played last night got [50] points off turnovers and rebounds. It is unbelievably hard to understand how we can get outworked in those categories."
Jazz coach Will Hardy, meanwhile, hailed a big win for his team, who were without four of their top seven scorers.
Hardy said: "That's a really, really good team win for us. That's a hard game to play, second night of a back-to-back on the road with a bunch of guys out."
Cam Johnson scored 24 points and Mikal Bridges added 21 for the Nets, who handed the Pistons their 26th consecutive loss on Saturday.
Cade Cunningham poured in 37 of his 41 points in the second half and shot 15 of 21, but Detroit broke a tie with the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers and 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers. The 76ers hold the overall mark at 28 straight losses, a skid that started in 2014-15 and carried over into 2015-16.
The Pistons’ next chance to end the streak is Thursday at league-leading Boston.
Cunnigham made a pair of layups to draw the Pistons within 112-110 with less than a minute remaining, but Dorian Finney-Smith sank a baseline 3-point to put the Nets up 115-110 with 38 seconds left.
Alec Burks then missed a 3-pointer and Bridges hit two free throws for a 117-110 advantage.
Grizzlies win in OT, improve to 4-0 since Morant’s return
Ja Morant scored 31 points and the Memphis Grizzlies rallied for a 116-115 win in overtime against the New Orleans Pelicans to improve to 4-0 since he made his season debut a week earlier.
Desmond Bane scored 27 points, including a key 3-pointer in the final minute of regulation and the clinching free throw with 4 seconds left in overtime.
Jaren Jackson Jr. added 19 points, redeeming his missed free throw at the end of regulation with a pair of baskets late in OT that gave Memphis the lead for good.
Morant has averaged 28.8 points in four games since he returned from his 25-game NBA suspension after the Grizzlies were 6-19 in his absence.
Zion Williamson had 23 points and 11 rebounds for the Pelicans, who also lost a double-digit, second-half lead to Memphis in the previous meeting.
Kings’ Fox scores 43 in loss to Trail Blazers
De’Aaron Fox had 43 points but it wasn’t enough as Anfernee Simons scored 29 to lift the Portland Trail Blazers to a 130-113 win over the Sacramento Kings.
Duop Reath added a career-high 25 points and grabbed nine rebounds off the bench for the Blazers, who got 19 points from Malcolm Brogdon and 17 and 11 assists from rookie Scoot Henderson.
Fox was 16 of 26 from the field and 7 of 15 from long range while adding eight rebounds and four assists. Domantas Sabonis scored 34 points, but no other Sacramento player was in double figures.
The Pistons tied the Philadelphia 76ers, who lost 28 in a row starting in 2014-15 and into the 2015-16 season.
Detroit’s next chance to record its first win since Oct. 28 is Saturday against Toronto.
The Pistons opened a 21-point lead in the first half but trailed 106-100 in the final two minutes of regulation. Jaden Ivey scored six straight points to erase the deficit, then Bojan Bogdanovic made a putback with 4.6 seconds left to force OT.
Derrick White scored 10 of his 23 points in the extra period and Kristaps Porzingis added six to finish with 35.
Jayson Tatum had 31 points and 10 assists for league-leading Boston, which has won four straight and nine of its last 10 games.
Cade Cunningham led the Pistons with 31 points and nine assists, while Ivey finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds.
Jokic has another triple-double
Nikola Jokić registered 26 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists in less than three quarters to lead the Denver Nuggets to their sixth consecutive win, 142-105 over the short-handed Memphis Grizzlies.
Jokic was 11 of 11 from the field and hit all three free throws before going to the bench with 1:31 left in the third quarter. He notched his 11th triple-double of the season and 116th of his career, which ranks fourth in NBA history.
Desmond Bane had 23 points and Marcus Smart added 17 for the Grizzlies, who were without star guard Ja Morant. Memphis had a four-game winning streak snapped and dropped to 6-20 when Morant is out of the lineup.
Edwards leads Timberwolves past Mavericks
Anthony Edwards poured in a season-high 44 points and Rudy Gobert added 20 with 11 rebounds to lead the Minnesota Timberwolves to a 118-110 win over the Dallas Mavericks, who were without Luka Dončić.
Jaden McDaniels chipped in 12 points for Minnesota, which improved the Western Conference’s best record to 23-7.
With Doncic out on the second night of back-to-back games, Dallas lost its fifth in seven games. Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 32 points off the bench and Jaden Hardy added 17 points.
