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Saturday, Dec. 18 7:30pm ET
Iverson benched for final 20 minutes | |||||
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 GAME FLOW
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- Philadelphia 76ers coach Larry Brown has always had a roller-coaster relationship with superstar point guard Allen Iverson. Saturday night, it took a definite downhill turn.
Brown benched three starters, including Iverson, the league's leading scorer, for the final 20 minutes of Philadelphia's 104-91 loss to the Pistons. A fourth starter, Tyrone Hill, played only one minute in that stretch. "I've never sat down in the second half for nothing before," the angry Iverson said. "For some reason, my style doesn't fit this team no more." Philadelphia trailed by 23 points when Brown pulled all five starters with 8:15 left in the third period. George Lynch played most of the fourth, but Iverson, Eric Snow and Theo Ratliff stayed on the bench, even when the Sixers pulled within seven points. "So I need to get out of here," Iverson said. "It's as simple as that. Something needs to happen. Right now, I don't like what is going on. When I get back to Philly, I'll let that be known. However you look at it, I'm going to be the bad guy, but I'll deal with it. "I've never been done like that ever in my career." Brown said that the mass benching wasn't aimed just at Iverson, who was playing just his fourth game after sitting out with a fractured thumb. "It wasn't an indictment of one guy," he said. "It's everybody in the first group. Everybody's got to execute, everybody's got to share the ball and everybody's got to defend. That's not happening." Iverson still led Philadelphia in scoring with 19, while Matt Geiger added 17 off the bench. Jerry Stackhouse led Detroit with 26 points and Grant Hill added 20 points and seven assists. Jerome Williams had 18 points and matched a career high with 16 rebounds. "Jerome was just sensational for us today," Pistons coach Alvin Gentry said. "He did a great job for us, and so did Grant. But let me tell you, there are a lot of great 2-guards in this league, but Stack is playing as well as anyone. He's picked it up defensively and he's getting more assists and rebounds." Detroit appeared to take control of the game with a 16-0 run midway through the second period. That gave them a 53-35 lead, and they were still up 62-46 at the half. The Pistons outscored the 76ers 32-21 in the second, with Williams leading the way with 12 in the period. Detroit put together another 9-0 run early in the third, increasing the margin to 73-50. Terry Mills had five of the points, including a 3-pointer. It was then that Brown pulled all five starters. Lynch and Hill returned early in the fourth, but Iverson, Snow and Ratliff stayed on the bench. "Nothing surprises me, nothing at all," Snow said. "I don't think we deserved to go back in. It's not like he put some scrubs in, a lot of our guys used to be starters in this league." Todd MacCulloch helped pull the Sixers within 79-65, but Detroit scored the final four points of the quarter to go back up by 18. Larry Hughes, playing in Iverson's spot, led a 10-2 Sixers run that cut it to 85-75 with eight minutes to play. Christian Laettner scored on three straight possessions to keep Philadelphia at bay, but two baskets by Geiger made it 94-87 with 3:37 left. "In that 16 or 18 minutes, we played the way we've been playing for a three- or four-week period," Brown said. "It was amazing. You figure it out." But that was as close as the Sixers could get, as Detroit pulled away from the Philadelphia reserves. "That was a tough situation for them, because they were playing pretty well with the guys they had in there," Hill said. "But I hope he sits them out of the fourth quarter again when we play there on Monday." Game notesStackhouse played just hours after his graduation ceremony at North Carolina. He attended the ceremony, then flew back to Detroit in time for the game. The Pistons honored Stackhouse, who entered the NBA after his sophomore season, with a brief pregame ceremony. ... Williams' double-double was his 13th of the season, but this one was unique. He picked up 12 points and 12 rebounds in the second quarter alone. Six of the rebounds came on the offensive glass, tying a team record. ... Philadelphia had held 21 of 25 opponents under 100 points. | ALSO SEE NBA Scoreboard Philadelphia Clubhouse Detroit Clubhouse Iverson to Sixers: Get me out of here if I don't fit in
Stackhouse gets North Carolina degree, win with Pistons
RECAPS Washington 95 New York 83
Detroit 104
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