Pistons guards Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton fashioned an older one: that of a three-time All-Star backcourt.

And their look was far more menacing.

For the first time in the 2008 playoffs, Billups and Hamilton were in sync – with their shot and each other – and set the tone early in a 17-point Game 5 victory.

Billups finished with ’08 playoff highs of 21 points and 12 assists and Hamilton dropped 20 on 10-of-17 shooting. It was the first time in the series that both All-Stars scored at least 20 points.

Billups’ performance had been pedestrian, at best, in the first three games as Philly built a 2-1 series. He showed signs of coming around with 18 and 7 in Game 4. Then he dominated the start of Game 5 with 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting and 5 assists in the first quarter.

“You could see he just had a little bit more pop to his step, a little bit more lift on his shot, just better rotation on the ball,” Pistons head coach Flip Saunders said of Billups. “Just looked like he felt better about himself shooting the ball.”

Shooting under 30 percent in the series, Billups shot 50 percent from the floor (7-of-14) and beyond the arc (3-of-6) in Game 5.

“That’s good. We knew Chauncey could,” said Rasheed Wallace. “He had a couple shooting woes for a few games but we knew he’d come out of that slump. It’s only one way to do it and that’s to keep shooting. So honestly, me, myself, I was never worried about, ‘OK, Chaunce had a bad shooting night tonight,’ or whatever. It was only a matter of time.”

Fittingly, the Pistons’ first scores were a Hamilton layup and a Billups 20-foot jumper. More of each would come during Detroit’s 35-point first quarter, a quick reminder to Philadelphia that not all 2-2 series are created equal.

Leading 14-10, the Pistons came out of the game’s first timeout on a 14-2 run, capped by a play that seemed almost routine in the regular season but has been seldom seen in this series: a Wallace block rebounded by Billups, who brought the ball upcourt briskly and dished to Hamilton on the right wing for a 19-footer.

On the preceding play, Billups dribbled around Sixers Andre Miller – whose profile as Billups’ nemesis has grown as Billups’ playoffs numbers have stayed low – and so discombobulated him that he almost ran over Billups from behind. Billups regained his balance and dished back to Wallace, whose triple doubled up the Sixers, 24-12.

Billups and Hamilton each accounted for five points in the run that essentially blew the game open at 28-12 (the 76ers never cut the deficit below 10 after that). By the end of the first, the Pistons’ guards had combined for 22 points on 9-of-11 shooting.

“It felt good. I got some great looks, great opportunities and I continued to be aggressive and – like I said, whether my shot’s falling or not – I’m going to play the same way,” Billups said. “Take the same shots, and you never know when they’re going to fall but I can’t let that affect my floor game.”

Billups – who delivered 4, 6, 4 and 7 assists in the first four games – looked like he was running a more fluid offense from the outset of Game 5. “We ran a couple of things we hadn’t ran yet in this series that they really didn’t have an answer for it,” Billups said. “Guys started hitting – I hit shots, Sheed hit shots. Guys were just knocking them down.”

The difference was more substantial than making shots, though. When the Pistons’ All-Stars are a threat as a playmaker and a scorer – as Billups and Hamilton were Tuesday – opposing defenses are stretched beyond their limits. Players like Wallace – who shot 8-for-12 for 19 points – find their job infinitely easier. When two Sixers followed Hamilton out of the paint on a second-quarter possession, Rodney Stuckey zipped a pass to a wide-open Wallace on the block. He laid it in for a 37-23 lead.

“We didn’t rush our shots tonight,” Wallace said. “We were rushing them for the last few games but we just looked at film, took our time and see what we could get.”

Playoff aberrations eventually give way over the course of a series, and a sense of normalcy returned for both teams in Game 5. Sixers leading scorer Andre Iguodala, flirting with the worst-shooting playoff series in 60 years, rediscovered his stroke and his knack for getting to the rim. He had 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting, which is about the only consolation the Sixers can take back to Philadelphia.

“He’s a really good player as well,” Billups said, “and he’s not going to struggle every single night.”

Sadly for the Sixers, the same could be said of him.