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Originally Posted by espn.com
Prince scores 31 as Pistons earn eighth straight victory
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- Chauncey Billups was angry with the way he played Thursday night against the Miami Heat.
That turned out to be bad news for the New York Knicks.
Billups went 8-for-9 from the floor and finished with 22 points and a season-best 16 assists to help the Detroit Pistons beat the Knicks 108-100 Friday night for their eighth straight victory.
"I was horrible yesterday, and I needed to fix that tonight," said Billups, who had 11 points and five turnovers in the win over Miami. "I wanted to come out and be aggressive."
Billups was nearly perfect while matched against Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis in the first half, hitting all six of his shots and adding 10 assists without a turnover.
"He came out aggressive," Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. "That's what you have to do against Steph and Francis."
Tayshaun Prince equaled his career high with 31 points for the Pistons, who haven't lost since a 100-99 home defeat to New Orleans dropped them to 3-5 on Nov. 15.
"I just got hot today, that's all," Prince said. "Obviously, I was shooting it well."
Prince hit a career-high six 3-pointers, including three in the fourth.
"Tay put in a lot of hard work over the summer, but he's always been a great shooter," Billups said. "He's just getting more shots now, so he can get into a rhythm and really get going."
Richard Hamilton added 26 points for Detroit, going 11-for-11 from the line, and Rasheed Wallace had 14 rebounds.
Knicks coach Isiah Thomas got an ovation from the Palace crowd before the game, then had to watch his old team shoot 48.1 percent from the floor, including 11-of-22 on 3-pointers.
"It didn't have anything to do with bad defense," he said. "They have some shotmakers, and their shotmakers made shots. I'm proud of how our team played, but this is a tough building to win in, especially when they are clicking on all cylinders."
Eddy Curry led the Knicks with 24 points and former Michigan star Jamal Crawford added 18.
"We're just starting to come together and play as a team, and they've been doing it for a long time," Curry said. "We gave ourselves a chance to win, but in the end they just made too many shots."
Marbury and Francis combined for 23 points on 7-for-22 shooting as the Knicks lost their third in a row and sixth out of seven.
"They played great as a team -- it wasn't one guy, it was everyone," Francis said. "We were ready to play, but every time we made a run, they hit a shot."
The Knicks scored the game's first six points, but the Pistons had already gone ahead by the end of the first quarter and led by as many as 10 in the second.
New York rallied, but Billups' 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds left gave the Pistons a 56-49 advantage at halftime. The Knicks had 30 points in the paint to just 12 for Detroit and outrebounded the Pistons 24-16, but the Pistons' seven 3-pointers kept them ahead.
The game stayed close until the Pistons put together a run late in the third. Hamilton started it with back-to-back jumpers, and Prince's 8-footer made it 78-64.
Rookie Renaldo Balkman's tip-in at the buzzer pulled the Knicks within 84-71, and they held the Pistons scoreless for the first 5:29 of the fourth. However, New York only managed eight points of its own in the stretch, and Prince put away the game with 11 points in the next 4 minutes.
"Tay bailed us out when we were struggling to score in the fourth," Saunders said.
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12-01-2006, 02:57 PM
Game 18: New York @ Detroit
