Detroit 90, Wolves 74

AUBURN HILLS, MICH. - The clash between the Timberwolves and the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday night at The Palace of Auburn Hills bore little resemblance to the teams' meeting eight days earlier in Minneapolis.

That one lasted a whole 24 minutes.

This one, a mere 14.

Given that NBA games are 48 minutes long, the news was not good either night. Last week, Detroit coach Flip Saunders' new team broke open and tucked away, all at once, its game against Saunders' old team with a debilitating third quarter for Minnesota in a 24-point rout at Target Center.

This time, in a 90-74 victory, the Pistons did pretty much the same thing but did the damage with a 20-2 run through the meaty part of the second quarter. That was all it took to turn a 27-23 Wolves lead into a 43-29 Pistons snoozer.

Detroit backed that up by another 15-point defensive lock-down in the third, extended its lead to 22 points and gave Wolves coach Dwane Casey and his crew basically three options the rest of the way: fight frustration, listen to the leather-lunged patrons a few feet behind their bench or try to find value in the remaining minutes as some sort of live practice.

They wound up doing D) all of the above and were reminded again why the ideal in this league is building a team that ripens over several seasons. Rather than tearing down and remodeling on the fly in the middle of an 82-game schedule.

Richard Hamilton scored eight of his 21 points in that third quarter. Tayshaun Prince had 13 of his 20 in the first. Chauncey Billups, who lit the fuse last week with 18 points in the third, went home after scoring only nine on a veritable night off (29 minutes).

Down the stretch, there were more lowlights than highlights, including: Casey picking up his second technical foul of the season with 6:13 left in the third; Hamilton colliding and falling over ref Mike Callahan later in that quarter; and Wolves backup center Mark Blount being assessed a flagrant-1 foul after clotheslining Maurice Evans on his drive to the basket at 8:21 of the fourth quarter.

Good thing, at this point, that Minnesota is done with Detroit for the season. The Wolves' confidence might not survive a third meeting.

"This is a well-oiled machine," Kevin Garnett said, held to a low-impact 14 points and 12 rebounds. "They know each other, they know when to turn it up, they know how to turn it up defensively, they don't have to communicate, they have that chemistry. A lot of variables go into their game.

"Twenty-nine [other] teams in the league, don't nobody play like this."

Certainly not the Wolves (21-23), who brought in four new players from Boston last week and, on Wednesday night's active roster, had six new faces from the 12 who were present for Saunders' firing a year ago. Without the emotion of facing the Celtics, and having to play the Pistons (38-6) in front of a boisterous crowd, the new guys -- Blount, Ricky Davis, Marcus Banks and Justin Reed -- totaled 32 points, a dropoff of 22 from the previous game.

Which is nothing for them to be ashamed of, but something to learn from.

"It's tough," said Davis, who has scored 20 points over the last two games after getting at least that many in each of his first two with the Wolves. "Guys still don't know the sets. You're running out there, just trying to play ball. But to play ball against this team, you've got to execute. You've got to play as a team. Everybody's got to know each other's role and all that."

That goes for the old guys as well as the new. One of Casey's challenges, besides bringing the former Celtics up to snuff, is blending what he had with what he's got. Starting point guard Marko Jaric has looked lost while playing only 36 minutes in two games. Center Eddie Griffin floated through another one, and backup guard Troy Hudson was not used at all.