Pistons Fall And Can't Get Up

Ray Allen matched the Detroit Pistons output in the first quarter by himself.

Allen scored 14 of his 19 points in the opening quarter as the Milwaukee Bucks held the Detroit Pistons to one basket in the first quarter of a 115-86 win Monday night.

"I thought we were going to win tonight, but I never thought we'd have the performance we had in the first quarter," Bucks coach George Karl said. "It was just great basketball, dictated a lot by our defense. I thought we passed the ball so well early in the game"

The Bucks made their first 11 shots and rolled to a 23-2 lead before Christian Laettner scored Detroit's only field goal of the quarter with 5:10 left. Milwaukee, meanwhile, hit everything until Haywoode Workman missed with 4:51 remaining.

Related Links

More NBA coverage:

"It's the NBA. People can get extremely hot like that if you let them, if you don't play the right type of defense," said Laettner, who led the Pistons with 17 point and nine rebounds. "We were letting them dictate everything. People can make shots in this league."

Glenn Robinson added 18 for the Bucks in their highest-scoring game of the season. Milwaukee led 40-14 after the first quarter and 68-37 at halftime.

"I thought Glenn and Ray responded real well," Karl said. "I challenged them a little bit about being more responsible for how we play and I thought they came out great."

Detroit shot just 1-for-12 in the first quarter and had only two rebounds. The Bucks made 17 of 20 shots.

Detroit, which shot 31 percent, got no closer than 22 points in the third quarter at 75-53 on Don Reid's short hook with 6:12 left. Milwaukee led 88-63 entering the final period. The Bucks shot a season-best 57 percent, making 42 of 74 shots.

"The best part of tonight's game is that the buzzer went off," Pistons coach Alvin Gentry said. "It's iexcusable and it's unexplainable. But we set basketball back. That whole thing was a joke. We set basketball back 25 years the way we played tonight. We set competitiveness back 50 years the way we played tonight. There is no excuse for that."

Notes: Forward Scott Williams, activated earlier off the injured list, made his first appearance for Milwaukee since being acquired from Philadelphia at the trading deadline. He scored eight points in seven minutes. ... Milwaukee improved to 7-2 when outrebounding its opponent. ... Charles O'Bannon, activated earlier off the injured list, scored eight points in 17 minutes for Detroit. ... There was a 77.7 percent difference in first-quarter shooting as the Bucks shot 85 percent to Detroit's 8.3. ... Chris Gatling, acquired from New Jersey at the trading deadline, had a season-high 16 points for Milwaukee. He had 14 for the Nets on Feb. 7 against Atlanta.

More from CBS News