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The Detroit Pistons are in the midst of their worst season in a long time, and Sunday night in Cleveland they were once again not up to the task of hanging with one of the NBA’s big boys, suffering a blowout loss, 104-79 to the Cavaliers. “It’s tough, we just have to be mentally strong and go out there and play our hearts out,” Pistons forward Charlie Villanueva said.

The Pistons are not 23-47 on the season, and while they hung around for the first half, the Cavs deep bench and tough defense shut down Detroit in the second half, outscoring them 51-38 in the final 24 minutes for the blowout win. Cleveland moves to 56-15 with the win. “I felt we had a competitive edge tonight and have to keep building on it,” Cavs coach Mike Brown said.

The Cavs are simply a better team than the Pistons, and it showed with them topping Detroit in four meetings in the 09-10 season. Sunday night was by far the biggest blowout of the four, but when you have the leagues MVP along with a bench that outscored Detroit 47-34, the Pistons simply never stood a chance.

Cleveland is on a role, as they have won 13 of their last 14, and are now 30-4 at Quicken Loans Arena. They had the luxury of having to only play LeBron James for 30 minutes, as he scored 15 points. The team was led by Leon Powe off the bench, as he added 16 points and 7 rebounds in 21 minutes.

“I think defensively we were a little bit more in tune,” James said. “Offensively we moved the ball from side to side and got some easy shots.”

The Cavs jumped on Detroit, building a 28-20 lead after one, and then outscored them 25-21 in the second quarter to go up 53-41 at the half. The third and fourth quarter felt more like a preseason game for Cleveland, as they were able to use their bench and defense to never allow the Pistons to get close again.

“We got stops and were very aggressive in moving the ball offensively,” James added. The Cavs are in New Orleans on Wednesday to play the Hornets. Detroit is at home on Tuesday to play the Indiana Pacers.