The Pistons wanted to get deeper into their bench this year. They just didn’t want to do it because they had no alternative. But with Rip Hamilton, Rodney Stuckey and Lindsey Hunter unavailable, they had no choice Thursday in their season opener at Miami. Rookie Arron Afflalo went from the fringe of the rotation to the starting lineup, Tayshaun Prince played a little point guard and tied his career high in rebounding while scoring a career-high 34 points and Chauncey Billups orchestrated beautifully, leading to a 91-80 win that gets the Pistons – who play eight of their first 10 games on the road – off on the right foot. Miami made up all of an 11-point deficit to tie the game at 62 late in the third quarter, but the Pistons then went on a 12-0 run to seize control.
The story of the game in Pistons red, white and blue

– Prince could have put up even gaudier numbers if he’d made some fairly easy shots early in the game, but it was still a dazzling debut for the sixth-year forward. He had 16 points and eight boards by halftime and, besides setting his career scoring high, tied his career best with 12 boards. In 43 minutes, Prince also provided the play of the game, taking the ball from the wing in front of the Pistons’ bench through the heart of Miami’s defense and throwing down a windmill dunk on Miami 7-footer Mark Blount. His offensive rebound early in the fourth quarter resulted in a 3-pointer by Jarvis Hayes that gave the Pistons an eight-point lead after Miami had rallied from 11 back to tie late in the third, and his long two with the shot clock running down a few possessions later – when he was playing point while Billups sat – put the Pistons up 10.

PRINCE: “… it does matter that I continue to play aggressive and good things will happen. With Richard Hamilton out, it allows me to do more things. More importantly, I got to the paint and I got to the free-throw line. Once those things happen, you get around your career high. I knew I had to respond. And that’s why in the first quarter I tried to make some things happen.”

BILLUPS: “I told Tayshaun, ‘You’ve got to step it up today.’ He was awesome. Tayshaun has been doing that a lot. I know I talked to him a lot in the preseason about him being more aggressive. He is just a tough matchup. He does so many things out there.”

HEAT COACH PAT RILEY: “Prince simply had an incredible night, but he was scoring on the same play we were talking about for three days in practice. It is a very simple play, and we did not get tracking. We did not focus on it. We did not read it. We are supposed to baseline it, but I think that has a lot to do with just not having our guys together for a while.”

Blue Collar – Billups, forced to play 39 minutes by the backcourt shortage, managed the pace of the game beautifully. Recognizing his physical advantage over Jason Williams, Billups picked his spots to go to the rim judiciously. He finished with 19 points and 11 assists and got to the foul line 10 times.

Red Flag – Antonio McDyess conditioned differently this summer in preparation for his move into the starting lineup and the Pistons hoped that would eliminate the slow starts that have plagued him the past few seasons. But McDyess struggled through the preseason and got off to a shaky start in the opener, scoring four points and grabbing four boards. McDyess played only nine minutes in the second half and wasn’t on the floor during the decisive fourth-quarter run.
Pivotal plays, frozen moments and lasting images from the opener

Desperate measures – They say necessity is the mother of invention, which helps explain some of the exotic backcourt combinations Flip Saunders employed. With their backcourt depleted by the unavailability of Stuckey (broken hand), Hamilton (family emergency) and Hunter (flu-like symptoms), Saunders got creative. Jarvis Hayes – who had 10 points and five boards in 27 minutes of his Pistons debut – swung back from small forward to play some shooting guard. When Billups sat, Prince wound up playing point guard alongside Flip Murray for a while. Afflalo started – the first Pistons rookie to start the opener since Grant Hill 13 years ago – picked up two fouls in the first five minutes and sat out the rest of the first half. He was better in his nine-minute stint of the third quarter and knocked down a 3-pointer for his only basket.

Wither Shaq? – Either concerns about the Pistons being able to defend legitimate post players with only one true center, Nazr Mohammed, on their roster has been overstated, or Shaquille O’Neal is on his last legs. Shaq went scoreless in the first half when he was limited to 10 minutes by three fouls. He had a brief spurt in the third quarter when Miami rallied to tie, but got nothing done in the fourth quarter. O’Neal finished with nine points, seven rebounds and four turnovers. The Pistons double-teamed him far more than they have in the past, something the Heat figures to see more of this season with the free-agent defections of Jason Kapono, James Posey and Eddie Jones.

SAUNDERS: “We started out the game doing a nice job against him in the post. I thought we did a nice job getting the ball out of his hand. We made other people make plays. Then when he came back in the second half, he got into a rhythm. He started finding some people. So we went to a zone to give them a different look.”

Rotation hints – It’s hard to make too much of Saunders’ rotation because the depleted lineup skewed the backcourt rotation. But Nazr Mohammed was the first big guy off the bench, followed by Jason Maxiell. Amir Johnson, still dealing with residual pain in his Achilles tendon as a result of the ankle sprain that cost him much of the preseason, didn’t get off the bench and probably won’t play in Orlando, either. Hayes came in late in both the first and third quarters for Prince but logged more minutes at shooting guard.
A little perspective on the opening-night win over Miami

It wasn’t especially pretty. Only Tayshaun Prince and Chauncey Billups played to their capability, though Rasheed Wallace (11 points, eight boards) was very strong defensively. But no one will utter a whisper of complaint given the situation. With their backcourt so badly thinned and the brutal opening schedule – eight of the Pistons’ first 10 games are on the road – a win is a win is a win. And that’s especially so against a team two seasons removed from winning the NBA title, in their building, with the dominant player of his generation in uniform and a Hall of Fame coach stalking the sidelines.