Will Bynum brought the Pistons back from an early fourth-quarter eight-point deficit to tie Dallas, but already shorthanded without Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, and gassed from a draining Saturday night win at Washington, and seeing Ben Gordon miss 15 of his 16 shots, and having Rodney Stuckey crumple midway through the fourth quarter with a calf cramp while Dallas was sinking a critical 3-pointer as he lay writhing …

Well, you get the idea. Close, but no victory cigar.

It wasn’t quite the way the Pistons wanted to embark on a four-game West Coast trip that must have been scheduled by the Marquis de Sade – back-to-backs against the Lakers and Portland first and Utah and Phoenix to close it out – but they left with their heads up, even if their batteries were down.

Put it this way: The aftermath of this 95-90 loss to Dallas, whose epitaph couldn’t be written until Gordon’s tying triple bounced long with two seconds left, was a far cry from Sunday postgames at The Palace a year ago, when Michael Curry was left to bemoan another curiously lethargic effort and another damnably frustrating loss to a lesser opponent.

“The effort was great,” said John Kuester, whose slammed notebook on the scorer’s table to end the game revealed how deeply the Pistons wanted to win the getaway game. “The guys gave everything they had. We’re disappointed we lost, but the guys gave everything they had.”

Stuckey carried the Pistons for three quarters, scoring all 28 of his points, and Bynum carried them to the finish line, scoring 17 of his 27 in the final 12 minutes.

But with Gordon going 1 of 16 – his only make a layup off a nice second-quarter drive – and Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince missing again with injuries, the Pistons didn’t have quite enough firepower to cut down one of the West’s powers, themselves playing without Josh Howard (ankle) and Erick Dampier, who was taken to a local hospital just before game time feeling ill and was to spend the night under observation.

Even Charlie Villanueva, sizzling while averaging nearly 25 points over his past four games, couldn’t do much to fill the void. He scored 13 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, but he shot 6 of 16 and three of the makes were spoon-fed dunks or layups.

And it was Villanueva involved in key plays at both ends of the floor midway through the fourth quarter that underscored the kind of night it was for the Pistons. Bynum had scored six straight points and set up Ben Wallace (nine points, 10 boards, three blocks) for a layup to tie the game at 78 when the Pistons got another stop and had the chance to take the lead.

Villanueva got the shot – and a good one, but he missed from 10 feet as it lipped in and out. He raced downcourt ahead of the Dallas transition and planted himself in front of Dirk Nowitzki, but Nowitzki got the call and converted it into a three-point play.

If Charlie V’s shot goes down, the Pistons are on a 10-0 run with the lead and momentum is at full boil. If Nowitzki gets called for the charge, the Pistons get the ball back with a chance to expand their lead. Alas …

A few possessions later, with Dallas ahead by four, Stuckey went up for a jump shot and had his calf cramp on him as he rose, not only throwing off his shot but putting the Pistons down a man. Kuester wanted the Pistons to foul, but Dallas found Jason Terry open for a corner triple that put the Pistons in a seven-point hole.

And still they came back, Bynum hitting a triple, nailing four free throws and finally scoring on a twisting layup with 29 seconds left to pull the Pistons within three. They forced a Terry miss, getting the ball back with 5.7 seconds left, and set up a play that spoke both to Kuester’s boundless confidence in his players – he designed it for Gordon to be the first option, despite the stats – and to the lack of options available to him with Prince and Hamilton in street clothes and Stuckey icing his calf.

“Are you kidding me?” Kuester said when asked if he could have imagined Gordon going 1 of 16 yet still having a chance to win. “I wanted him to have the last shot. I have the utmost respect and confidence in Ben Gordon.”

“You can’t turn down shots,” said Gordon, who came into the game shooting 49 percent, a superb number for a guard, never mind one who shoots as many 3-pointers as he does. “I felt like I got a couple of good shots in rhythm, just wasn’t able to knock any down. But my team is confident in me and I continued to get decent looks. I just wasn’t able to convert.

“They didn’t feel good – and they didn’t look good, either. But you’re going to have games like that every once in a while. I’ve just got to bounce back and try to help my team next time.”

Next time would be Tuesday against the Lakers, defending champs, on the road. The Pistons have done an admirable job of treading water while awaiting the return of Prince and Hamilton – and the Pistons weren’t even sure if those players were going to be on Roundball II when it departs Monday, so it’s not likely they’ll be back for any of the four games. They’re now 5-5 overall and 4-3 in games without both of their links to the run of six straight conference finals.

They’ll be underdogs, maybe even considerable underdogs, in all four games, when twice they’ll be playing on consecutive nights against rested opponents in Portland and Phoenix without having a corresponding advantage in the games against the Lakers and Utah.

It’s conceivable they could lose all four. And you know what? You get the feeling with this bunch, that wouldn’t be the end of the world. The schedule eventually evens out. Their limping wounded eventually will return. And there’s no hint that the esprit de corps Kuester has so clearly instilled in this team is in danger of leaking out of them anytime soon.

“We haven’t been giving up in none of the games,” said Bynum, emerging as the face of a pugnacious, fun, easy-to-root-for bunch. “We’ve been fighting ’til the end. That’s kind of our character. We’re going to play hard every single possession and we’re going to give it our all out there.”

Where there’s a Will, there’s a way.