Pistons cruise to road win over Bucks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tayshaun Prince led the way with 20 points to help steer the Detroit Pistons to a 117-91 road victory over the weary Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday.

The Bucks were playing their fourth game in five nights and ended up losing all of them. The Pistons had not played since Wednesday.

"You could see they were a little bit tired," said Pistons coach Flip Saunders after his team won for the fourth time in the last five games.

Chauncey Billups had 18 points and nine assists and Rasheed Wallace 15 points and 10 rebounds in the easy victory for the Pistons.

"Right now we are operating on all cylinders and playing pretty efficiently on offense.

"To score as many points as we did and how effective we were, considered we started ...a little sloppy, a little bit lethargic, we played our way into it and started executing. We really operated on all cylinders."

Pistons guard Richard Hamilton added: "We had a lot of things go well for us tonight. I think we played real well.

"It was just one of those games where everything was going so well for everybody and we got a win."

The Bucks blew a 17-point second-half lead in New York on Friday and lost to the Knicks.

"We're kind of in the middle of a downturn, no doubt," said Milwaukee coach Larry Krystowiak.

Two successive three-point plays by Jason Maxiell gave the Pistons an 18-16 lead and they never trailed again.

* The New Orleans Hornets ended a 21-game losing streak to Dallas and beat the Mavericks for the first time since 1999 when they secured a 112-106 home overtime win. Peja Stojakovic forced overtime with a three-point shot with 2.9 seconds left in regulation time and ended up with 22 points.

Chris Paul delivered 33 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds, Tyson Chandler scored 21 points and grabbed 13 boards and David West had 11 points and 14 rebounds in the momentous win for the Hornets. Three different Mavericks scored 19 points each in the loss.

* Ben Gordon scored 34 points, Luol Deng had 29 and Ben Wallace 10 points and 19 rebounds to power the Chicago Bulls to a 111-95 home victory over the Charlotte Bobcats.

(Writing by Mike Shalin; Editing by Martin Petty)