Gilbert Arenas grabbed a seat, frowned and shook his head at the conclusion of the Washington Wizards' 107-105 loss to the Detroit Pistons last night. Arenas put his left hand over his face and didn't get up until his assistant coaches tapped him on the shoulder and told him it was time to go. He didn't want to leave -- and the first sellout crowd of the season at MCI Center, perhaps, didn't want to go either -- after the Wizards let a game they should've won slip away.
The Wizards built a 19-point first-half lead against the defending champions, but they couldn't do much right in the second half as Pistons point guard Chauncey Billups rallied his team and hit the game-winning shot over Arenas with seven-tenths of a second remaining.
Larry Hughes, the NBA's leader in steals and one of three Washington players averaging 20 points a game, will miss the next four to six weeks with a fractured right thumb.
(Joel Richardson - Post File Photo)
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"The only time I felt like that was when I played at college against Duke in the championship. That's the last time I felt that disappointed in a loss," said Arenas, who lost in the NCAA championship game in 2001 as a member of the Arizona Wildcats. "We played so hard and we didn't get rewarded for nothing we did right."
Despite a combined 64 points from Arenas (34) and back-court mate Larry Hughes (30), the Wizards (15-12) lost for the seventh straight time against the Pistons, who outscored them 65-46 and shot 58 percent after halftime. Billups was the catalyst in the second half, when he hit 5 of 7 three-pointers and scored 21 of his 32 points. He was aided by former Washington Bullet Rasheed Wallace, who scored 12 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter.
Billups took over when Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan sat Arenas with 5 minutes 22 seconds left after he was called for his fifth foul. Officials said Arenas grabbed the arm of Pistons forward Antonio McDyess while he was attempting a layup -- "I didn't see that on the replay," Arenas said.
"I thought we were still up and that we could hold on for two or two-and-a-half minutes to give Gil a breather," Jordan said. Billups went directly at second-year point guard Steve Blake, scoring eight consecutive points in less than two minutes, giving the Pistons a 101-96 lead and silencing the 21,173 in the building. "We played pretty good defense on him," Blake said of Billups. "He just hit some tough shots."
The Wizards tied the game at 105 when Hughes found Antawn Jamison (16 points) streaking underneath the basket with 21 seconds left. That left the game to be determined by Billups, who drove inside and sank a 14-foot fallaway jumper as Arenas lost his footing.
A desperation heave by Jarvis Hayes (11 points) didn't come close. "It was a good fight," said Hughes, who added seven assists and six steals. "They're a battle-tested team and it shows, but it doesn't sit well to go down like that. It's always tough to lose a game when the clock doesn't allow you time to respond."
The Wizards have had better first-half offensive performances, scoring 60 points against an expansion team (Charlotte) and 62 against another team that resembles an expansion team (Atlanta). But they scored 59 first-half points against the Pistons, who came into the game ranked second in the league in scoring defense (88.7 points per game). They led 58-39 with 46 seconds left in the second quarter when Arenas stole the ball from McDyess (14 points) and zipped a bounce pass to Hayes for a one-handed jam.
Arenas and Hughes almost matched the Pistons' output of 42 points in the first half, combining to score 39 points on 13-of-19 shooting. But the Pistons came out inspired at the start of the third quarter, going on an 18-4 run to get within 63-60. The Wizards were outscored 32-20 in the period and Jamison picked up a technical foul for disputing a foul called on center Brendan Haywood against Pistons center Ben Wallace.
"Everything that can go wrong in a half did for us," Jamison said. "To have played the way we did in the first half, there really aren't any excuses."
"There is no consolation in this loss," Hughes said. "It doesn't matter that they're the defending champs. That's no disrespect to them. They're the best, but we know we have the skills to take out anyone, especially in our place. We're past the point of taking consolation from playing good teams tough."
