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Sunday, Dec. 26 6:00pm ET
Pistons' Williams grabs 21 boards | |||||
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BOX SCORE
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 GAME FLOW
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- Detroit Pistons forward Jerome Williams has always considered a 20-rebound game a personal goal. On Sunday, that goal became even bigger.
Just hours after a friendly wager with his father, Williams grabbed a career-high 21 rebounds to help lead the Pistons over the Charlotte Hornets 114-96 Sunday. "On the way here today, my dad told me that if I got 20 rebounds tonight, he'd do 100 pushups, 100 situps and 100 jumping jacks every night for a month," Williams said. "He's already lost his first 10 pounds, but now he's going to go for more." Williams, who became the first Pistons player with a 20-plus rebound game since Olden Polynice in 1993, also felt he put himself in a new class of players. "I've never let myself think of myself as one of the top rebounders in the league -- not until I got a 20-rebound game," he said. "They didn't tell me how many I had until I got 19, and those last two were the hardest to get." Grant Hill led Detroit with 30 points, while Jerry Stackhouse added 22 and Lindsey Hunter 19. "We talked before the game about how crucial this stretch of games is," Stackhouse said. "We can't afford to give away any more games at home." Anthony Mason led Charlotte with 28. Both teams entered the game having lost two in a row, but the Hornets preceded theirs with an eight-game winning streak, while the Pistons have struggled to get over .500 for weeks. "After winning those eight in a row, we're starting to get a taste of the other side," Charlotte coach Paul Silas said. "And it isn't a good taste. The perplexing thing is that we don't have any answers. We lost a close one, and now we've played two poor games in a row. We've just got to watch some tape, figure things out and go from there." Charlotte led 61-60 at the half behind 17 from Mason, who hit all eight of his field-goal attempts. "It was scary -- we shot 60 percent in the first half, made every free throw and outrebounded them, and we were still losing," Pistons coach Alvin Gentry said. "We knew we had to pick it up defensively, and that's what we did. They had 30 and 31 in the first two quarters, then only 35 in the second half. That was huge." Detroit went on a 14-2 run early in the third to go up 74-68. Hill scored six points in the surge and Hunter and Stackhouse had four each. Bobby Phills scored seven straight to pull the Hornets within one, 78-77. But Detroit moved the margin back to 87-79 by quarter's end. John Crotty's three-point play with 10:35 left boosted Detroit's lead to 11 at 91-80. Charlotte got within seven with 9:12 left, but the Pistons scored the next seven to put the game away.
Game notes | ALSO SEE NBA Scoreboard Charlotte Clubhouse Detroit Clubhouse RECAPS Washington 103 Houston 92
Detroit 114
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