TAKE FIVE
A five-point dissection of the Pistons’ 20th win

1. STUCK-KEY! STUCK-KEY! - No Rip. No Rasheed. No Dice.

No problem.

OK, so it wasn’t all that easy. But with three of their best players sidelined by injury – and arguably their three top perimeter shooters – the Pistons grabbed a double-digits edge early and never trailed after taking a 5-4 lead Friday night in stretching their winning streak to six games with a 98-92 win over Sacramento.

Rodney Stuckey, 10 days after his first career 40-point game, nearly had his second, finishing with 38, including 13 in the fourth quarter when he accounted for the Pistons’ last 13 points, scoring nine straight and then dishing out assists to Amir Johnson and Allen Iverson. With the crowd chanting his name in the final minute, Stuckey missed a 15-footer that would have given him another 40-point game.

“He had a monster game tonight,” Kings interim coach Kenny Natt said. “We had some poor discipline where we weren’t able to contain him. Give him credit. He took the shots that we gave him and he was able to execute.”

Stuckey, Iverson (23 points) and Tayshaun Prince (23 points, 10 rebounds) accounted for 84 of the Pistons’ 98 points and Amir Johnson chipped in with 10 and career highs in minutes (38) and rebounds (14) on a night when there were many statistical anomalies.

The Pistons were outscored by 15 at the free-throw line (Sacramento was 33 of 34), nine from the 3-point arc (the Pistons didn’t make a triple for the first time since April 10, 2005) and 33 off the bench.

On the other hand, Sacramento was outscored by 36 in the matchup of starting point guards. Beno Udrih scored two points in 20 minutes before leaving with a thigh bruise and his backup, Bobby Brown, scored two more.

“I knew I had an advantage at point guard with Udrih and Bobby Brown,” Stuckey said. “Just being aggressive. I knew sometimes they’re focused on AI and those guys coming off screens, so I just took advantage of taking them one on one. I’m going to continue to be aggressive.”

When Sacramento closed the gap late, Stuckey was at this best. The Pistons had a six-point lead when Arron Afflalo picked off a backdoor pass, but Bobby Jackson immediately picked Iverson’s pocket in the backcourt and seconds later hit a corner triple to make it 89-86 with 2:43 left.

But Stuckey countered with a driving layup when he froze Sacramento’s defense with a nice pass fake, then after Brown launched an ill-advised triple, Stuckey beat Brown with an ankle-breaking crossover that he converted into a three-point play for an eight-point lead that wasn’t again threatened.

Brad Miller had 25 points and 16 boards for Sacramento. Kevin Martin, in his second game back after an ankle injury, scored 20 but shot just 4 of 15.

TEAM COLORS
The story of the game in Pistons red, white and blue

2. - Stuckey will have deadlier shooting nights, but even a spotty jump shot didn’t prevent him from being the dominant player on the floor even before his 13-point, three-assist, two-steal, two-rebound fourth quarter.

“One thing about Stuckey is that when he sees an opportunity to attack, regardless of what the play call is, he attacks,” Michael Curry said. “He got guys on his hip and continues to attack and get to the basket. That’s how he plays. Those are the things we saw within him. That’s why he’s becoming a really, really good point guard.”

Stuckey finished with seven assists, four rebounds and two steals in addition to his 38 points.

“Everybody was feeling I was going to come in here and run the point guard and that wasn’t the case,” said Iverson, who took Hamilton’s advice and started settling for jump shots with Sacramento packing the lane due to the absence of Detroit’s 3-point threats. “They were already setting (Stuckey) up to be the main point guard on this team. This is a smart organization. They know what they’re doing or they wouldn’t have had the success they’ve had. It was all in the makings and now everybody is seeing that. Even with a great point guard like Chauncey being gone, we still have one.”

3. BLUE COLLAR - Fitting that on the day the Pistons sent Walter Sharpe to the D-League, Amir Johnson reminded them again why it might be a good idea. It was two years ago, during his second stint in the D-League, that Johnson began leaving the strong impression that he would become an NBA impact player someday.

Johnson, starting his fourth straight game since the Pistons were forced to go big again due to Hamilton’s injury, was dynamic. He was more responsible than anyone for the quick start, giving the Pistons eight points, seven rebounds and a blocked shot in the first quarter with two dunks, one in transition, a put-back and a 19-foot baseline jumper.

He finished with 10 points to go with his 14 rebounds and three blocked shots.

4. RED FLAG - The Pistons hope to get at least one or two of their walking wounded back for Sunday’s matinee with the Clippers, but if they don’t they’re going to need somebody off the bench to give them a little scoring pop to ease the burden on Stuckey, Iverson and Prince.

Arron Afflalo did a good job harassing Martin into his subpar shooting night, but he missed all four of his shots. Walter Herrmann got nearly six minutes as an emergency power forward in the second quarter, but missed his only shot, a triple. Maxiell had the only two points for the Pistons’ bench, a short half-hook off of a nice setup from Stuckey midway through the third quarter.

THE LAST CALL
A little perspective on the sixth straight win

5. A WIN IS A WIN - When three of your top six players are unavailable, you don’t quibble about the details of a win. Especially with a grinding four-game Western road swing coming up, the Pistons gladly pocket a win that extends their streak.

“Just happy to get a win,” Iverson said. “We knew it was going to be rough being that they had their whole team and we were missing three guys that help us out, night in and night out. But the whole thing was everybody taking advantage of the minutes they were going to get and we’re going to need everybody in the long haul. People get in foul trouble, people get hurt. And that’s what being a team is all about.”

The Pistons are now a season-best nine games over .500. The road trip is brutal – after the Clippers on Sunday, the three other opponents (Portland, Denver, Utah) were a combined 22 games over .500 heading into Friday night’s games. But the Pistons have shown in their three wins this week over Orlando, New Jersey and Sacramento what they’ve exhibited constantly during their seven straight 50-win seasons – an ability to come up with whatever it takes on a given night to get a win.

Even when they’re as drastically shorthanded as they were for their first win of 2009.