MIAMI - Shaquille O'Neal was back and productive, often barreling his way past the Detroit Pistons. Yet, the end result almost seemed to mirror last year's NBA Finals.

O'Neal did his thing, and it ultimately didn't matter.

Rasheed Wallace shot 4-for-5 from 3-point range and scored 20 points, Chauncey Billups had eight of his 18 points in the fourth quarter, and Ben Wallace had 13 points and 13 rebounds as the Pistons beat the Miami Heat 90-81 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals Monday night.

"It's a big win," Billups said. "Not having home-court advantage sometimes is an advantage for us because we play with that chip on our shoulder from Game 1. ... We snuck one out here, snuck one away."

O'Neal - who's still bothered by a bruised thigh - had 20 points in 33 minutes on 9-of-14 shooting.

"I think he will continue to be effective in the series," Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said. "We've just got to get some better performances out of other people."

Eddie Jones led the Heat with 22 points, but Dwyane Wade was held to 16 on 7-for-25 shooting, including one run where he was 0-for-8.

Game 2 of the series is Wednesday in Miami, where O'Neal will try to begin an improbable quest he's pulled off three times before - winning a series when dropping the opening game. He's 24-0 when winning Game 1 of a playoff series, 3-8 when his team loses the opener.

No matter what happens in Miami the rest of the way, if Detroit wins out on its home floor, it's headed back to the NBA Finals - where, a year ago, it conceded averages of 26.6 points and 10.8 rebounds to O'Neal, but beat his Los Angeles Lakers in five games.

"Our guys understand that it's not going to be easy," O'Neal said. "We've got to play better. We had a lot of opportunities to win this game. We're not going to hang our heads. We're going to come out and fight in the next game."

Richard Hamilton had 16 points, Tayshaun Prince had 13 and Antonio McDyess added 10 for Detroit, which only had six players score - but all were in double figures.

"We really executed down the stretch, used the clock good, never gave them much opportunities other than that one brief moment," Pistons coach Larry Brown said. "So, good win for us."

Detroit opened the second half on an 8-0 run to build a nine-point lead, and stretched the margin to 64-50 when Hamilton hit a jumper with 5:08 left in the third quarter.

Slowly, the Heat chipped away and eventually clawed back. Miami scored 50 points in the first 29 minutes; it put up 30 in the next 12 minutes, a 9-0 run tying it at 80 on Udonis Haslem's 17-foot jumper with 5:11 left.

After a jumper by Billups and one free throw by O'Neal, Miami got a stop and was poised to take the lead. But Wade missed a 20-footer from the right wing with 4:01 left, the first of eight straight Heat misses to end the game.

"I'll look at the film tomorrow, see what I have to do different, see what I have to do to help my team win," Wade said. "And I will do it. I'm not really worried about that. Good win by Detroit to come in and get this first one, but we can play a lot better."

True, but the Heat now face long odds.

Since 1990, only three teams - the 1993 Chicago Bulls, 2003 San Antonio Spurs and 2004 Pistons - have overcome 1-0 deficits to win their respective conference championship series. Each of those teams went on to win NBA titles.

"It's a seven-game series," Heat center Alonzo Mourning said. "Adversity only makes you stronger. When you go through a loss like this, the only good thing that comes out of it is that."

O'Neal's status was a mystery until just before tip-off. The sold-out arena erupted when he and the Heat took the floor for warmups at 7:58 p.m., although the overhead scoreboard still listed Mourning as Miami's starter at center.

Not only did O'Neal start, he wasted little time in asserting himself.

O'Neal scored the game's first points on a turnaround 20 seconds in and was 4-for-4 in the first 4:11, helping the Heat to an early 13-10 lead. Much like last year in the Finals, he faced largely one-on-one coverage from the Pistons, and O'Neal had success overpowering Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace down low.

But even with O'Neal producing, Detroit still led 44-43 at halftime - in large part because of the way it helped Shaq's superstar running mate, Wade, in check.

Wade missed 10 of his first 12 shots, including eight straight in the second quarter, and finished the half 3-for-13. His only make of the second quarter was a runner in the lane with 15.3 seconds left that gave Miami a one-point lead, but Ben Wallace answered with a putback 7.9 seconds later to put Detroit back on top.

"A lot of those looks that he's used to getting were a little tougher," Billups said. "They had a hand in his face. And once he got by Tayshaun, he met our second line of defense - Ben and Rasheed and Dyess. ... We're not going to try to let him get comfortable."