WASHINGTON -- Ben Wallace blocked Michael Jordan's first and last shots. He made a flying out-of-bounds save on the first possession of overtime, and he ended the game by stealing an inbounds pass.
And, by the way, he became the first player in five years to grab 20 rebounds in four straight games.
Wallace finished with 20 rebounds and seven blocks, and Richard Hamilton hurt his former team's playoff prospects by scoring six of his 16 points in overtime as the Detroit Pistons beat the Washington Wizards 94-90 Tuesday night.
"I've run out of adjectives to describe what he's doing right now," Detroit coach Rick Carlisle said. "When you play 50 minutes and get 20 rebounds and seven blocked shots, that's a man's man."
Chauncey Billups scored 26 points for the Pistons, who broke a six-game road losing streak. Reserve Corliss Williamson scored 12 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, and Detroit's bench outscored Washington's 38-5.
Jerry Stackhouse scored 28 points and Jordan had 23 for the Wizards, but both were silent in overtime until Stackhouse's runner in the dying seconds.
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| Washington Wizards' Michael Jordan (23) tries to get past Detroit Pistons' Corliss Williamson, left, during second-half action of the Pistons' 94-90 overtime win Tuesday, March 18, 2003, in Washington.
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The Wizards, who fell back into a tie with Milwaukee for eighth place in the Eastern Conference, now leave for a six-game West Coast trip that will likely decide their season. Washington is 9-21 on the road.
"I'm glad it's here," guard Larry Hughes said. "If this is it, then everybody understands that. We've talked about it long enough."
Wallace appeared out of nowhere to stuff Jordan's layup from behind to start the game, and swatted the ball away when Jordan tried a spin move in traffic in the final minute of overtime with the Wizards trailing by three. Jordan complained that no foul was called.
"I didn't think it was a foul, but that it's Mike, he usually gets that call," Wallace said. "That just compliments us playing hard. Never concede anything - making them make tough plays and making them make tough shots.
"I got all of it. The ball ain't went nowhere toward the basket, so something got all of that."
Jordan also had two turnovers on bad passes in overtime, but he felt he should have been shooting free throws after Wallace's block.
"I was just trying to make contact and get to the free-throw line," Jordan said. "They saw it as a block. But I'm not the referee. They didn't call it, and that's the way it goes."
In his last four games, Wallace has 21 rebounds against the Los Angeles Lakers, 24 against the Wizards, 21 against Boston and 20 against the Wizards again. The last player with four straight 20-rebound games was Dennis Rodman in the 1997-98 season.
"It's kind of hard to expect 20 rebounds out of someone every night," Detroit center Clifford Robinson said. "But he does a really good job of making you expect it."
Hamilton, who shot just 4-of-12 in regulation, was 3-of-5 in the extra period, including three straight jumpers that gave the Pistons a four-point lead. He and Billups, who sealed the game with a high-arching layup in traffic with 13 seconds left, accounted for nine of 10 Detroit's overtime points.
Hamilton was acquired last year in the trade that sent Stackhouse to the Wizards. Stackhouse's big stretch came in the fourth quarter, when he scored 10 straight Wizards points.
Reserves Williamson, Jon Barry and Mehmet Okur accounted for all the points in a 15-2 run that put the Pistons ahead 73-66 midway through the fourth quarter, Detroit's first lead of the second half.
The Wizards came back at the free-throw line. Stackhouse, who hadn't been to the line all game, made eight straight and gave his team the lead again, 80-79, on a fadeaway jumper with 3:16 to go.
An exchange of baskets and free throws left the game tied at 84 in the final minute. Robinson missed a 20-footer, Wallace missed the tip, and Stackhouse missed a long fadeaway at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.
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