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IMPACTFUL: Romp over Warriors as Ben Wallace honored a milepost for Tom Gores’ Pistons mission

(Editor’s note: The Pistons snapped a six-year playoff drought and improved by 12 wins over Stan Van Gundy’s debut season, finishing 44-38. We’ve identified the five most significant wins – significant for a variety of reasons – and are reviewing them over the course of the week. Today: cooling off the league’s hottest team on a magical night at The Palace.)

When Tom Gores bought the Pistons in June 2011, he spoke passionately about sports franchises as community trusts. He was in it to win, but as much – or more – for the larger reasons of what winning championships could mean for Detroit and all of Michigan, still in the throes of recession.

He understood that the only way to galvanize the region through his ownership of the Pistons, though, would be with a winning basketball team. At a minimum, to provide a pleasant distraction by bringing people from a spectrum of backgrounds together in a common pursuit. But more than that, ideally – using the broad platform a winning sports franchise provides to do good and inspire others to similar deeds.

To be, as he said it, “impactful.”

But first, the Pistons needed to thrust themselves into the spotlight and make fans gone dormant by six years of missing the playoffs flock to them again. On a relatively mild mid-January night, celebrating one of the greatest players in franchise history and with an opponent threatening to top the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ record 72 wins, the stage was set for the Pistons to record their most...

IMPACTFUL WIN