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Friday, Mar. 30 8:00pm ET
Wallace grabs 12 offensive rebounds for Detroit

RECAP | BOX SCORE | GAME FLOW

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) – Detroit Pistons coach George Irvine taught Ben Wallace everything he knows about the art of offensive rebounding.

Wallace
Wallace

Wallace finished with 14 points, 12 offensive rebounds and nine defensive rebounds as the Pistons beat the Orlando Magic 100-97 Friday night.

"I coached him a lot this morning on how to get those offensive rebounds," Irvine said. "Of course, keep in mind that I only had about 12 in my career and he had 12 tonight."

Wallace returned to the Detroit lineup after missing two games of Detroit's 0-4 road trip while attending his grandmother's funeral.

"This was a tough week, but my family was great," Wallace said. "I knew they were dealing with things OK, and they told me to get back to work."

Wallace said that his focus on the offensive boards was a response to Orlando's up-tempo style.

"We know they like to run, and the only way we can stop that is to attack the offensive boards," Wallace said. "They can't run if they don't have the ball."

Detroit snapped its five-game losing streak and ended its string of 29 straight losses when trailing at halftime.

"I give the players a lot of credit," Irvine said. "We wondered how they would respond after that road trip, and they showed us."

Jerry Stackhouse had 33 points for the Pistons. Mike Miller led Orlando with 21 points, and Tracy McGrady added 18.

Orlando led 56-54 at the half and took a double-digit lead with an 8-0 run midway through the third quarter. McGrady scored four points in the run and set up another basket.

Orlando led 86-78 at the start of the fourth quarter, but did not score for the first 3:58 of the period. The Magic shot 3-for-22 (13.8 percent) in the fourth quarter

"This game didn't slip away, we gave it away," McGrady said. "I guess we thought they were going to give up, but they didn't. All of the hard work from beating Philly, and we blew it here."

Detroit pulled within 88-87 on a Corliss Williamson's jumper with 5:54 left.

Darrell Armstrong scored for the Magic, but Williamson answered and Stackhouse hit a 3-point to put Detroit ahead 92-90.

Stackhouse missed a pair of free throws with 2:09 left, but Mikki Moore, fouled on the rebound, converted a pair of free throws as Detroit moved out to a 98-95 advantage.

Miller and Pat Garrity missed 3-pointers for the Magic. After Stackhouse missed, Detroit fouled Armstrong, who hit two free throws and pulled the Magic within one point with 19.1 seconds left.

Stackhouse was fouled and hit a pair of free throws and Miller's layup try was blocked by Wallace.

"They played hard down the stretch, and we let up," Miller said. "We had a 10-point lead, and we can't be giving those away. Not at this point."

After Detroit's Chucky Atkins missed a pair of free throws, a 3-pointer try by Orlando's Michael Doleac bounced off the rim as time expired.

"The way this season has been going, most nights Doleac makes that shot," Stackhouse said. "We could have put it away with Chucky's free throws, but we never make it easy on ourselves."

Game notes
The game was delayed when balloons dropped to celebrate the Pistons' first basket floated onto the court. ... Official Jim Clark expressed his views on the NBA's tighter hand-check rules. When he called a first-quarter foul on Orlando's Mike Miller, he said: "Foul on number 50 – I hate this rule – hand check."

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