Arenas leads Wizards past Pistons

DeShawn Stevenson scored 15 points for the Wizards, who won their third straight. Caron Butler added 13 points in the win, which was bittersweet.

Wizards forward Antawn Jamison left with a sprained left knee after he banged it in a collision with Stevenson at the conclusion of a Washington fast break midway through the first quarter. He did not return.

"We don’t know exactly what is wrong yet," Washington coach Eddie Jordan said. "He has been sore and he will not travel with the team to Toronto. He is going to stay and get an MRI on Thursday and we will take it from there."

Chauncey Billups notched 24 points and eight assists for the Pistons, who have lost two of three. Tayshaun Prince netted 19 points, while Richard Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace both added 15. Antonio McDyess contributed 11 points off the bench.

With Detroit trailing 91-77 midway through the final stanza, it scored the next seven points to trail by just seven with 5:29 on the clock.

Arenas’ acrobatic three-point play with 1:44 left bolstered Washington’s lead back to double-digits, 99-89, but Billups scored on a layup 13 seconds later and Carlos Delfino’s dunk with 37.9 seconds left made it a six-point game.

However, Butler converted 1-of-2 free throws with 28.5 seconds remaining to make it a three-possession game. Billups took a give-and-go through the lane for a layup with 23.9 seconds on the clock, and Antonio Daniels missed a pair of free throws with 22.4 seconds left.

Prince then came up short on a deep three-point attempt, and Arenas converted a pair from the charity stripe with 13.6 seconds on the clock to make it a three-possession game again. Billups managed to score on a quick layup with six seconds left, but Daniels was successful on two free throws this trip to seal the win, despite Billups’ layup at the buzzer.

Washington opened the game on a 10-3 burst capped by a pair of Stevenson layups, and attained a 30-18 first-quarter advantage.

"I think we are better than that," Hamilton said. "Washington is a great first-quarter team. We expect them to come out and try to get up first and things like that."

The Wizards failed to pull away during the second, adding just one point to their lead for a 55-42 advantage at halftime.

Detroit regrouped in the locker room, and started to chip away at its deficit in the third quarter. Wallace’s turnaround jumper with 1:20 remaining cut it to 10, 74-64, heading into the fourth.

Game Notes

Tuesday’s showdown between Detroit and Washington was the fourth and final meeting of the regular season...The season series is tied, 2-2, but the Pistons have won 12 of the last 17 meetings...Detroit has still won eight of its last 10 at Washington.