The Pistons couldn’t make as much of Chauncey Billup’s jersey retirement game as they did of Ben Wallace’s. Instead, the Denver Nuggets (the team on which Billups had the second most success) managed to take the win.
It’s a shame that Detroit had to waste a relatively easy game (at home, against a bad team) by having half of their rotation unavailable. The shorthanded Pistons played neck-and-neck with the Nuggets through the first half, but ultimately couldn’t hang on as Denver pulled away just enough after the break to grab a comfortable victory. Coupled with the Charlotte Hornets’ big win over the Indiana Pacers, this drops the Pistons out of playoff position for the first time since November.
This game started really ugly. For much of the first half, it looked like a college game. Both teams were sloppy, often a bit slow, and just didn’t look quite ready for prime time. But they both stepped it up a lot starting in the mid-to-late second quarter. Unfortunately, the Nuggets did so a bit more than the Pistons and they end up with a sweep of this year’s series.