The Pistons witnessed the first points of the Connecticut rookie’s career Wednesday night as the shorthanded Hornets improbably beat the Pistons 100-99 behind Armstrong’s 17 points and nine rebounds.

And those numbers don’t reflect his critical batted ball with three seconds left of his own missed free throw after he’d made the first to break a 99-all tie. The clock ran out while the Pistons tried chasing it down, a fitting end to a loss that won’t digest easily as the Pistons fell to 3-5 with home games Friday and Saturday against Washington and Houston up next.

There might not be any such thing as moral victories in professional sports, but inexplicable losses still exist. Count this one among them.

With both their starting interior players – Tyson Chandler and David West, representing about 24 points and 20 rebounds – out with injury, the Hornets turned to Armstrong and Brandon Bass, who’d played a combined 17 minutes and scored two points through their first eight games. They finished with 29 points and 16 rebounds. Throw in the fact that New Orleans was coming off a Tuesday night win in its adopted home of Oklahoma City while the Pistons had been off since getting blown out at Golden State on Saturday and it’s no wonder Chauncey Billups described the team’s mood as “frustrated.”

“They’re shorthanded – that’s the messed up thing,” Billups said in an unusually somber locker room. “Their starting frontcourt is not even playing in this game, they had a tough trip up here last night, a back to back. It’s a bad loss. That’s the bottom line. It’s a bad loss.”

It was this bad: Flip Saunders has called two of his team’s three home performances “embarrassing.”

“I told our guys at halftime, ‘The only consistency you have in this league is how hard you play and the passion and emotion you play with,’ ” Saunders said. “And we were lifeless to start with you. You give up 60 points in the first half, you never get a chance to get into any kind of rhythm. I told them it was embarrassing.”

The Pistons didn’t get off to the bumbling starts that have hung like a mushroom cloud over the early season, trailing 27-24 after one quarter, but they got gashed in the second quarter – trailing by as many as 16 before setting for an 11-point halftime deficit.

They would come all the way back to take the lead on a barrage of 3-pointers – two by Billups, one by Rasheed Wallace in a 9-0 run that actually saw the Pistons crank up triples on six straight possessions – that gave the Pistons an 89-86 edge with 8:06 to play.

The last triple of the night, from Wallace on Detroit’s final possession with the score tied at 99, clanked off the rim, giving New Orleans the last chance to win the game. Byron Scott did what everyone knew he would do – put the ball in the hands of dynamic second-year point guard Chris Paul (20 points, 13 assists, no turnovers), and Paul split the defense and fed Armstrong with three seconds remaining, forcing Rip Hamilton to foul him. After breaking the tie, Armstrong’s second attempt bounced right off the rim and the long-armed rookie got a hand on the ball over Billups’ reach and flicked it out toward center court, the clock expiring.

Billups played Paul pretty much to a draw – 29 points, nine assists and one turnover – and the Pistons got decent games from Rip Hamilton (23 points) in his return after two games rehabbing an elbow injury and Tayshaun Prince (16 points, 10 boards). Rasheed Wallace spurted late to wind up with 14 and 10, but the Pistons got little from their bench (11 points, four rebounds, two assists), forced only six turnovers, were outrebounded by nine overall and 11 on the offensive glass, and missed nine free throws. You know you have deficiencies somewhere when you shoot 52 percent at home and still lose.

“Their main guy was Chris and we were focused on him and lost focus on everyone else,” Wallace said. “(Detroit’s defense) could be better. To give you the specific spot, that I don’t know. But we could be better – we will be better.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Prince said when he was asked if the Pistons’ unfamiliarity with Armstrong and Bass enabled their big games. “You’re at home, you had a bad outing in the first seven games so far, and you come in here and come up short again. Now knowing much about them didn’t have anything to do with it. You play the way you’re supposed to play and worry about what we have to do, you don’t have to worry about your opponents.”

“It’s early,” Billups said, “but it’s late enough already.”