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AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - The 76ers didn't find it that difficult to get the basketball inside last night against the Detroit Pistons.
What they did find difficult were the stop signs the Pistons kept throwing up in the paint. If it wasn't 6-foot-9 Ben Wallace, it was 6-9 Antonio McDyess or 6-11 Rasheed Wallace or 6-10 Tayshaun Prince.
The Pistons swatted away 13 shots, with Ben Wallace and McDyess accounting for five apiece, and dominated the backboards to take control and cruise to a 99-91 victory over the Sixers before a sellout crowd of 22,076 at the Palace of Auburn Hills.
Sixers misfire against Pistons
By Joe Juliano, Inquirer Staff Writer
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - The 76ers didn't find it that difficult to get the basketball inside last night against the Detroit Pistons.
What they did find difficult were the stop signs the Pistons kept throwing up in the paint. If it wasn't 6-foot-9 Ben Wallace, it was 6-9 Antonio McDyess or 6-11 Rasheed Wallace or 6-10 Tayshaun Prince.
The Pistons swatted away 13 shots, with Ben Wallace and McDyess accounting for five apiece, and dominated the backboards to take control and cruise to a 99-91 victory over the Sixers before a sellout crowd of 22,076 at the Palace of Auburn Hills.
Allen Iverson, who led all scorers with 31 points and shot 11 of 19 from the field, saw the shadows of Detroit's big men on many of his occasional trips into the paint.
"What's it like? It's like a nightmare," Iverson said. "To get that close and not be able to score is tough. That's what you want, to get it in close like that, but then to get it knocked back out is a bad feeling. But you've got to keep taking it to them."
Iverson had two of his shots swatted back at him. Marc Jackson, a 6-10 center, and 6-7 Kenny Thomas, venturing inside at their own risk, each saw three shots marked "return to sender." It was nothing people hadn't seen before; all the Pistons did was play the brand of basketball that won them the 2003-04 NBA championship.
"They're bigger than we are," said Sixers coach Jim O'Brien, whose team lost to a speedier, more athletic Phoenix Suns team the night before. "Rasheed Wallace is a power forward and he's 6-11. Ben Wallace is a tremendous defensive player. It's difficult to score on the interior."
However, the bigger concern on offense last night for the Sixers was the lack of scoring help given to the team's star player.
Not counting Iverson, the rest of the Sixers shot 20 of 61 from the field. The team managed just 38.8 percent shooting from the field, and that included making its last five shots of the game just to bring respectability to the final score.
Willie Green, thrilled to be making his first career NBA start in his hometown, missed his first six shots from the field and finished 2 of 10. The other three starters, Jackson, Thomas and rookie Andre Iguodala, shot a combined 6 of 25.
"I just didn't get it done," Green said. "I had a bad game. I was excited. I had a lot of energy built up inside of me. But I was running up and down and didn't slow down the whole game. But I got one [start] under my belt and I won't have to worry about it in the future."
If there was one positive for O'Brien, it was the mere 11 turnovers committed by the Sixers, less than half of the 23 they threw around on Friday night in the loss to Phoenix.
The Sixers trailed by 53-46 at the half behind 23 points from Iverson, who went 8 of 11 from the field. But Iverson's teammates made only seven field goals in 30 attempts, and that cold shooting would have an effect in the second half.
Iverson cooled off a bit in the third quarter, accounting for a single field goal. He tried to look for assistance, feeding his teammates, but shots weren't falling. The Sixers opened the third quarter shooting just 1 of 8.
The Pistons' Philadelphia connection, Simon Gratz's Rasheed Wallace and Coatesville's Richard Hamilton, accounted for all of the points in a 12-2 run that gave Detroit a 65-50 lead with 8 minutes, 17 seconds remaining in the period.
As in Friday night's loss, a large deficit proved too much for the Sixers to overcome. They weren't able to get any closer than 11 until the final 49 seconds. O'Brien lifted Iverson with 5:45 remaining.
"I think he was really looking to distribute the basketball in the second half," O'Brien said. "I don't think [the Pistons] did anything special. He just had back-to-back games and he has a lot of responsibilities, pushing the basketball a lot and defending one of their best players."
That player, Chauncey Billups, led Detroit with 20 points and 10 assists. The rest of the Pistons' starting five finished in double figures, with Hamilton contributing 17. Ben Wallace notched 11 points, 16 rebounds and 5 blocked shots. The Pistons finished with a 50-41 rebounding advantage.
The Pistons won for the first time under assistant coach Garfield Heard, who has taken over as head coach while Larry Brown, the former Sixers head man, recovers from hip surgery.
The night was a special one for Sixers forward Corliss Williamson, who received his 2004 NBA championship ring from Pistons owner Bill Davidson before tip-off.
Williamson, who spent 31/2 years with Detroit before being traded to the Sixers in the off-season for Derrick Coleman, received a standing ovation from the crowd and looked a bit choked up by the proceedings. He was mobbed by his former Pistons teammates at the end of the game.
