Richard Hamilton scored 24 points and Detroit's defense held Cleveland in the final minutes for a 79-76 victory here on Monday in their National Basketball Association playoff opener.

Detroit's Chauncey Billups scored 10 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter while Rasheed Wallace added 15 points and 12 rebounds to spark the Pistons in the first game of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals.

Game two of the series will be played here tomorrow. Cleveland or Detroit will face San Antonio or Utah in next month's NBA Finals. The Spurs lead Utah 1-0 in the Western Conference finals.

Lithuanian center Zyrunas Ilgauskas scored 22 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead the Cavaliers, but superstar playmaker LeBron James went scoreless for the final 6:52 as the Pistons silenced him when it mattered most.

James finished with 10 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists but Tayshaun Prince smothered him in key moments, espcially after the Cavaliers led 41-35 at halftime.

"The first half we were discombobulated," Wallace said. "We weren't moving the ball around and they were getting second shots. At halftime we said we can't let them steal game one. We came out in the second half with better energy.

"In the first half we were the bad Pistons. In the second half we were the good Pistons. Rip kept us going the whole going. Tay did a pretty good job tonight (defending James)."

James has averaged 25.9 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists in the playoffs as the Cavaliers won four of their first five road playoff games.

Billups put the Pistons ahead 78-76 and the teams traded misses and turnovers until the Cavaliers had a chance in the last seconds, but Donyell Marshall missed a 3-point corner shot and Billups was fouled going for the loose ball.

"LeBron going to the basket draws so much attention that (Marshall) was wide open. We're just lucky he missed," Hamilton said. "We're going to be aggressive. We've got to know where he is at all times."

Billups made one free throw and missed the second with 2.4 seconds to play, but Brazilian Anderson Varejao missed a court-length shot to force overtime.

Varejao and Larry Hughes each had 13 points and seven rebounds for Cleveland.

The Cavaliers are in the conference finals for the first time since 1992, when James when seven years old.

Last year, the Cavaliers won their first playoff series since 1993 in round one, then pushed the Pistons to the brink of elimination before falling in seven games.

The Pistons, playing in their fifth consecutive conference final, reached the NBA Finals twice, beating the Los Angeles Lakers in 2004 and losing to San Antonio in seven games in their 2005 title defense.

The Pistons took three of four from Cleveland in the regular season.

(China Daily via AFP May 23, 2007)