AUBURN HILLS, Mich., May 2 (UPI) -- Jerry Stackhouse connected on his first basket of the game, a go-ahead lane jumper with 1:43 to go Thursday night, lifting the Detroit Pistons to an 85-82 victory over the Toronto Raptors and their first playoff series victory in 11 years.
The second-seeded Pistons won the Eastern Conference first-round series in five ugly, hard-fought games. They await the winner of the Boston-Philadelphia series, with Game One on Sunday at Detroit.
In a pair of losses in Toronto, Stackhouse scored just 26 points on 8-of-28 shooting. The poor play carried into this contest as Detroit's leading scorer missed his first eight shots and the Pistons found themselves trailing late by four points with less
than four minutes to go.
Detroit battled back for a 79-79 tie and went to Stackhouse, who dribbled left to right into the lane, pulled up and sank a 12-foot jumper that gave the Pistons the lead for good.
Neither team scored for over a minute and the Raptors deflected a pass out of bounds, leaving the Pistons just two seconds on the shot clock. After a timeout, Stackhouse inbounded from underneath the basket to Corliss Williamson, who had muscled inside of Jerome Williams. Williamson's layup gave Detroit an
83-79 lead with 26 seconds to go.
