Another game of which I missed the first half, but I think I managed to see all the good parts.

(Unless, of course, you consider the Pistons winning a bad thing. If so, you haven't had very much fun in the last three games, or five of the last six, or 10 out of the last 12 at the Palace. Believe it or not, the Pistons are 17-14 in their last 31 games, a winning percentage that would put them in the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference over the course of a season. What if the season wasn't shortened by a lockout? I digress.)

The Pistons beat the 12-43 Wizards for the second time in 10 days, but this one was handled with relative ease and did not need late Rodney Stuckey heroics. Stuckey certainly left his print on this game, though, scoring 15 on 6-for-7 shooting in 18 minutes off the bench.

Leading by as many as 20 with a little over nine minutes left, the Wizards went on a 19-7 run during the next seven minutes to pull within eight. That's when the Wizards decided to implement the Hack-a-Ben Wallace strategy to extend the game while also putting a career 41-percent free throw shooter on the line.

Wallace responded by asking Randy Wittman what he knows about Hack-a-Ben and sank five out of six.* After he hit his first four in a row, he turned to the Wizards bench and pointed, while talking some craps and allowing FSD to give us gratuitous shots of Sam Cassell and Wittman play confused coaches. It was awesome.

Wallace finished with the five points, eight rebounds, a steal, a block and three assists in 27 minutes. He earned some minutes from Monroe, who finished with a team-high 18 points. Jason Maxiell had his third double-double of the season with 11 points, 11 rebounds and one pre-game threat of a c'mon with it.

Slap the jump.

• * ... a good foot from the free throw line. Has Ben Wallace always stood that far from the line when shooting FTs? I guess I've never cared to notice before and I don't think I'm going to go back and look right now, so can someone else confirm?
• PistonPowered has the plays that preceded Monroe's benching in favor of Wallace:

Here are the defensive sequences that preceded that move: Kevin Seraphin missed a dunk; Kevin Seraphin made a dunk; John Wall drove in for a lightly contested layup; Seraphin made a short sweeping hook shot. On offense, Monroe threw a bad pass resulting in a turnover and committed a loose ball foul. All of that occurred in roughly two minutes, and Monroe was clearly a step slow on D in that stretch.

• The Pistons had three plays on NBA's Top 5 plays ... from Thursday's four games.
• The Ben Wallace block sequence was my 2nd favorite in the game. John Wall, who had an awesome game, got his shit turned back by the wily vet Wallace and then seconds later Wallace took a charge on Wall. Classic Wallace. It's also fitting that the Will Bynum sweet feed started with a Wallace steal.
• Knight was awful against Wall. In three games this season vs. Washington, Knight was 6-for-30 (16 points) with 10 assists (8 turnovers). Meanwhile, Wall averaged 17 points and 11.33 assists (4.33 TO), although he shot poorly (38%).
• Box Score

• Roll Call: Birdman84, Mike Payne, Fuad Shalhout, Kriz, BandWagonerPaysTheDues, curlyfries, grantlp13, V., -PS-, Shinons*, need4detroit, Flyman, JoeDip, Toledo Joe
  Total Users: 14
  Total Posts: 115
  Total Threads: 1

  Name	# of Posts
  BandWagonerPaysTheDues	53
  Mike Payne	23
  Fuad Shalhout	8
  V.	6
  grantlp13	6
  curlyfries	4
  need4detroit	4
  Kriz	3
  Shinons*	2
  -PS-	2
  Toledo Joe	1
  JoeDip	1
  Flyman	1
  Birdman84	1