Wallace leads Pistons past Spurs again, 83-68

For the second time, Detroit held San Antonio to a season low in points.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Rasheed Wallace scored 27 points and the Detroit Pistons again held the San Antonio Spurs to a season low in points, beating the defending NBA champions 83-68 on Thursday night.
The Pistons -- making their first visit to San Antonio since losing Game 7 of the NBA finals last June -- dominated from the start. They used accurate shooting and stingy defense to build a 20-point lead in the first half before the Spurs could get anything going.
San Antonio scored the first six points of the third quarter to trim Detroit's advantage to 48-42, but the Pistons outscored the Spurs 21-9 over the rest of the period to restore their lead to 69-51.
The Spurs pulled to within 71-61 on a layup by Tim Duncan with 5:46 remaining, but Richard Hamilton answered with a pair of jumpers to quash the rally.
Pistons sweep series
The win gives Detroit a sweep of the season series between the teams with the NBA's two best records.
The Pistons, tops at 28-5, beat the Spurs 85-70 at home on Christmas Day in what had been San Antonio's lowest-scoring game until Thursday.
Detroit outrebounded the Spurs 56-32 and had 25 assists, 14 of them by Chauncey Billups. San Antonio had only nine assists as a team.
Hamilton scored 22 points and Tayshaun Prince added 13 points and 12 rebounds. Rashed Wallace had 10 rebounds and Ben Wallace 10 rebounds.
Duncan and Tony Parker each scored 17 points for San Antonio and Manu Ginobili contributed 16. Duncan had 13 rebounds.
Rasheed Wallace scored the first three baskets of the game and Detroit's defense closed off the paint for the Spurs, who missed all but one of their first seven shots.
A layup by Parker gave San Antonio a 9-8 lead, but Prince made two layups and a jumper to ignite a 20-6 run by the Pistons to end the first quarter.
On defense, Ben Wallace blocked a drive by Ginobili that led to a transition jumper by Rasheed Wallace, and later Ben Wallace blocked Duncan under the Spurs' basket.
Poor shooting
The Spurs went 6-for-22 (27 percent) in the period, with Duncan missing all five of his attempts, while the Pistons were 13-for-21 (62 percent).
Detroit began the second with a 9-2 burst, capped by a 3-pointer by Rasheed Wallace and Carlos Delfino's corner jumper, to make it 37-17.
San Antonio finally established its inside game during a 14-4 run that cut their deficit to 41-32 with about three minutes left in the half. Duncan had two layups and Nick Van Exel hit a 19-footer and a layup.
Ben Wallace then got a tip-in and Hamilton passed to Rasheed Wallace for a dunk as Detroit got its lead back to 12 points at the half.
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