Pistons crush 76ers in Game 6, reach second round

PHILADELPHIA — The Detroit team that showed up for the first four games of the playoffs was in trouble against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Pistons who showed up for Games 5 and 6 sure look ready for the Orlando Magic.

The Pistons powered into the second round by crushing Philadelphia 100-77 on Thursday night, winning the series 4-2 and again demonstrating how good they are when they feel they need to be.

Detroit convincingly won the last two games of a series that wasn't expected to last this long. The Pistons have only one day off before they host the Magic on Saturday in the opener of the Eastern Conference semifinals — but probably wouldn't want a break since they just found their groove.

"Usually when we start getting into a rhythm, we start playing well," Detroit coach Flip Saunders said. "We are better off having them play again than taking two or three days off and resting. Hopefully we will be able to get out of here quick and get back home and get ready for Orlando."

Richard Hamilton hit his first five shots during Detroit's overpowering start and finished with 24 points, 13 in the decisive first quarter when he outscored the 76ers by himself. Chauncey Billups added 20 points and Tayshaun Prince had 12 for the Pistons, who reached the second round for the seventh straight season.

They were all on the bench for nearly the entire fourth quarter, when the lead ballooned to more than 30 points. Detroit held Philadelphia without a field goal for nearly the first 6 minutes of the game, ending any real hopes the Sixers' had of forcing a Game 7 back in Michigan.

Andre Iguodala scored 16 points and Andre Miller had another quiet game with 11 for the Sixers, who outplayed the heavily favored Pistons for the first 31/2 games of the series but never really had a chance after that.

"It's difficult because it's our home court and we wanted to play well," Miller said. "We were maybe a half away from going up 3-1. We kind of fell apart after that."

The second-seeded Pistons won 59 games during the regular season, second-best in the NBA behind Boston. But they quickly found themselves trailing the upstart 76ers, who were just 40-42, 2-1 then fell behind by 10 points at halftime of Game 4.

Detroit rallied to win that game, then trailed for only 23 seconds over the final two mismatches. As easy as the Pistons' 98-81 victory in Game 5 was, they had even less trouble in this one, racing to a 10-0 lead and never giving the disappointing crowd of 14,130 a chance to get into the game.

"Philadelphia probably woke us up," Saunders said. "Over the last 10 quarters we've executed as well as we can."

Detroit shot 58 percent from the field and limited Philadelphia to 34 percent.

"We really didn't catch a rhythm in this series until that second half of Game 4, and we really got our defense going, our offense going and things like that," Hamilton said. "And we kept carrying it over, so hopefully we can continue to do that."

Players took the court to music and a clip from "Rocky III" in which Apollo Creed tells Philadelphia's favorite movie hero that, "There is no tomorrow!"

It took just minutes to realize that for the Sixers, there wouldn't be.

The score was quickly Hamilton 7, Philadelphia 0, with the Sixers' sloppy start including an errant pass from Iguodala that struck Samuel Dalembert right upside his recently mohawked head for a turnover, followed a minute later by Thaddeus Young throwing up a 25-footer from 23 feet.

By the time Miller made Philadelphia's first field goal with 6:13 left in the period, that only cut Detroit's lead to 16-5. The Pistons shot 69 percent in the quarter, opening a 30-12 lead.

"We came prepared, we came ready, but they were on such another level," Dalembert said.

The Pistons were ahead 51-33 when Billups hit a jumper at the halftime buzzer.

Fans booed as the Sixers walked off the court trailing 79-51 after three, but this should go down as a good season for a team that was widely expected to finish at the bottom of the Atlantic Division. Philadelphia was 18-30 in early February but closed with 22 wins in its last 34 games, then rallied from 15 points down in Game 1 to stun the Pistons at Detroit.