AUBURN HILLS, Mich. _ Hustle. The Detroit Pistons are showing plenty of it right now.
And they certainly needed plenty hustle late in Tuesday's 120-113 overtime win over the Portland Trail Blazers at the Palace. In the fourth quarter, they came up with big steals and rose from the shallow grave they dug themselves in the first quarter.
In overtime, Marcus Morris came up huge with three consecutive jump shots, plus a defensive rebound, to help seal the win.
Morris led the Pistons (29-31) with 37 points, a career high. Andre Drummond, who missed two dunks early, had two thunderous slams late in the game and had 19 points and 15 rebounds. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 16.
Point guard Ish Smith came off the bench it the fourth quarter and energized the Pistons, scoring and dishing assists. He tied the score at 85 with a calm jumper with 8:44 left. He converted the first of two free throws to put the Pistons ahead, 87-85, with 8:15 left for their first lead since 2-0. Smith finished with 12 points and seven assists.
From there, it turned back into a repeat of the seesaw battle the teams engaged in during the Pistons' double-overtime victory at Portland in January. Damian Lillard sent the game to OT when he tied the score at 109 with 2.8 seconds left on a finger-roll layup.
Before the game, Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy was asked what the best way to ensure success was against Lillard and his backcourt partner, CJ McCollum.
"Hope they miss," Van Gundy said.
They didn't. At least not very often.
Lillard had 34 points and 11 rebounds. McCollum had 25 points as the Blazers controlled the game early but couldn't match the Pistons' hustle late and lost for the fifth time in six games.
Portland (24-35) entered the game 10 games under .500 and battling to get back into the Western Conference playoff picture. But it was the Pistons who looked like the struggling team, even though they had played with hustle in Sunday's loss to the Boston Celtics.
The Pistons started ugly, doing very little right at the beginning of the game. In the first quarter, they shot 33 percent from the field and were outrebounded, 17-12. They scored the game's first bucket, but it took them almost 6 minutes before they scored their fourth point. There were three missed dunks _ two by Drummond.
But good hustle at the end of the first quarter kept the score from getting out of hand. Morris had a nice put-back on Baynes' missed free throw. Then Baynes' block on McCollum set up Stanley Johnson's 3-pointer from the corner that trimmed the Blazers' lead to 27-19 as the first quarter ended.
The second quarter brought more good things. Better scoring, better rebounding, better play all around. And more good hustle. Jackson's beautiful alley-oop to Drummond for a thunderous dunk cut Portland's lead to 44-40 with 2:41 left.
The teams went into halftime with the Blazers ahead, 49-44 _ a score that seemed almost impossible during all the early miscues.
The Pistons swept the season series against Portland in consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history.
