NEW YORK—The Detroit Pistons easily moved into the second round of the NBA playoffs with a dominating 100-77 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday.
Richard Hamilton scored 24 points and Chauncey Billups 20 for the Pistons, who claimed the first 10 points of the game and led 30-12 after the first quarter in Philadelphia.
Detroit won the best-of-seven Eastern Conference series 4-2 and will face the Orlando Magic in round two starting on Saturday in Detroit. The Pistons have advanced to at least the second round of the playoffs seven straight years.
After struggling early in the series against the upstart seventh-seeded Sixers and trailing 2-1, second-seeded Detroit took over and disposed of Philadelphia with lop-sided wins in the final two games.
Detroit won Games Five and Six by a combined 40 points and out-scored Philadelphia 57-38 in the second half of Game Four to start their comeback.
"It took us a little while to get our rhythm back but once we did and we figured them out, we've been successful," Billups told reporters.
"It's the NBA, there are no bad players. That team has some capable players and they got going and got a lot of confidence and they got us down.
"That team had been playing playoff style basketball for quite awhile while and we needed some time to get going again."
Detroit won 59 games in the regular season, 19 more than the Sixers, and rested most of their starters in the last month.
Hamilton had 13 of his points in the first quarter in Game Six, more than the entire Sixers team, as Detroit held Philadelphia without a field goal for nearly the first six minutes of the game.
Tayshaun Prince added 12 points for the Pistons, who shot an impressive 58 percent, including 9-from-16 from 3-point range.
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