Rasheed Wallace scored a season-high 28 points to lead the streaking Detroit Pistons to a sixth straight victory with a 98-92 win over the Toronto Raptors at The Palace of Auburn Hills on Saturday.
Detroit (31-18) opened up a 2 game lead over the idle Cleveland Cavaliers in the Central Division, with the Pistons’ recent run also moving them into first place overall in the Eastern Conference standings.
The Raptors (27-24) also had a five-game winning streak heading into the game, but the run ended with an eighth straight loss in Detroit.
Toronto took a 24-18 first quarter lead and frustrated the Pistons with some tenacious defense in the early going before Detroit finally gained momentum in the second half, eventually taking a 76-73 lead after three quarters.
The home team shot 50 percent from the field overall to lead for most of the second half.
Wallace was the catalyst after taking a fourth quarter technical foul, scoring six of his points late in the game to help the Pistons hold off the Raptors down the stretch.
He told reporters after the game that the foul call served to motivate him for the rest of the night.
“If they make those calls on myself or any of our players, absolutely I’ll feed off that,” Wallace said.
Richard Hamilton added 21 points and eight assists for the Pistons, while Chauncey Billups chipped in 14 points and had nine assists despite making just three of his 11 shot attempts.
T.J. Ford led the Raptors with 17 points and 11 assists, but the Raptors saw their Atlantic Division lead cut to 2 games as the New Jersey Nets won at home against the Orlando Magic. Rookie Andrea Bargnani had 15 points and All-Star Chris Bosh contributed 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Raptors, who had won 14 of their previous 18 games to match their win total, from all of last season.
n Vince Carter scored 32 points to lead the New Jersey Nets to their third straight victory, a 93-78 win over the Orlando Magic.
n Chris Paul had 23 points and 11 assists as the New Orleans Hornets won their third straight game, downing the Memphis Grizzlies 114-99.
n Tracy McGrady and Juwan Howard both scored 16 points as the Houston Rockets routed the Charlotte Bobcats 104-83.
n Carmelo Anthony had 29 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists as the Denver Nuggets beat the Milwaukee Bucks 109-102.