LOS ANGELES, 8 June 2004 — Chauncey Billups scored 22 points and Rasheed Wallace had 14 as Detroit used a balance attack to beat Los Angeles 87-75 on Sunday, handing the favored Lakers their first loss at home in this year’s National Basketball Association playoffs.

“I don’t look at us as underdogs,” Pistons coach Larry Brown said. “They’ve got arguably the most dominant big player in the game, but our players look at themselves as being pretty special too.”

Some had barely given the Pistons a chance to win a single game, let alone steal the home court advantage from the star-studded Lakers in Sunday’s game one of the 2004 NBA finals. Game Two is today in Los Angeles.

“I wanted to come out aggressive and set the tone,” Billups said. “This is unbelievable the feeling we have. “But there is no time to dwell on it. We got a long series ahead of us.”

Richard Hamilton had 12 and Corliss Williamson scored seven off the bench. Hamilton also had five assists.

Shaquille O’Neal led the Lakers with 34 points and 11 rebounds as he and his sidekick Kobe Bryant combined for almost 60 points.

The Lakers were 9-0 at home this post-season before Sunday’s loss. Detroit’s stellar defense wasn’t able to contain O’Neal, but they did stifle future Hall of Famers Karl Malone and Gary Payton who were held to just four and three points.

“It was just effort,” Rasheed Wallace said. “We know Shaq and Kobe are going to get their points, we’ve just got to make it tougher on the other guys.” Bryant finished with 25 points as no other Laker reached double figures.

Of the last 20 finals series, 14 teams have won the best-of-seven series after winning Game One.

“We played great. I don’t know if we can defend any better,” Brown said.

The first half was all O’Neal for the Lakers, as he scored 20 points, equaling his per game average this postseason.

“They play aggressive defense,” O’Neal said. “They just wanted it a little bit more than we did. We came out a little too loose, too lackadaisical and nobody was trying to feel them out in the first half.”

O’Neal didn’t get much help from his supporting cast, especially from the 40-year-old Malone who had no points and didn’t score his first basket until four minutes left in the third quarter. Malone had fluid drained from his sore right knee four days ago.

“There was a little rust out there. They will get better as the series goes on,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. The Pistons came out with more emotion, and the sacrifice of the first half was by Billups who prevented a ball from going out of bounds by leaping in the air and firing it off the closest Laker as he was falling over people in the first row. Billups lead Detroit with eight points in the first half as he was a perfect 3-for-3 in shooting.

The Pistons trailed 41-40 at halftime but they took the lead 43-41 in the first minute of the third quarter and didn’t trail again in the game. Detroit also managed to beat the Lakers despite an off-night from their leading scorer Hamilton, who has been averaging 21.5 points in this year’s playoffs.

“We don’t depend on one guy to carry this team,” said Rasheed Wallace.