Three strikes, and the Pistons are out.
Brandon Knight's game-tying 3-pointer rimmed out at the buzzer, and the Pistons ended up with their third loss in as many nights, 99-96 to New Jersey.
"It felt good," Knight said. "I would have liked to have been more open, but it felt good. It just didn't go down."
With a record of 4-20, the Pistons are beyond the point where moral victories mean anything, but Wednesday's performance was better than the lopsided losses that started the three-in-three set. Detroit lost by 21 in Milwaukee on Monday and by 27 to the Knicks on Tuesday.
"Our spirit was very, very good," Pistons coach Lawrence Frank said. "We weren't even competitive in the last couple games, but tonight we gave ourselves a chance to win."
The Pistons had a pair of chances to tie the game in the final two seconds, but missed both shots. The first time, Tayshaun Prince got the ball on an isolation play, and ran the clock down to two seconds before missing a tough jumper over Shawne Williams.
After Sundiata Gaines split a pair of free throws to make it a three-point game, Knight missed a highly contested shot over Deron Williams at the buzzer.
"We got the shots we wanted, but we didn't knock them down," Prince said. "This team just needs more experience in close games. We've got to learn how to win these games."
The difference in the game, especially for a team with tired legs, came on the boards. The Pistons had 20 defensive rebounds while the Nets had 19 offensive rebounds - meaning New Jersey was getting almost 50% of its missed shots. Detroit, on the other hand, got just 31% of its misses.
"We knew we were going to have to crash the boards, and we were able to do that," Avery Johnson said.
New Jersey's ability to rebound was made more impressive by the fact that they only had eight healthy players. Kris Humphries, Shelden Williams and Shawne Williams combined for only four fouls in 104 minutes, and Jordan Williams - New Jersey's only frontcourt player on the bench - only committed one in 21 minutes.
"We had to be careful to stay out of foul trouble," Humphries said. "That hurt our agressiveness early in the game, but we stepped it up later."
In the end, the shorthanded Nets were able to hang on to beat their former coach. Frank, who lost his last 17 games as New Jersey's coach, has now gone 4-37 in his last 41 games - half of an NBA season. With the Pistons, he's lost seven straight and won just one of 13 road games.
Frank constantly talks about his team as being a "work in progress," but right now, the progress has been painfully slow.
