MIAMI - Adversity again brought out the best in the Detroit Pistons.

All indicators suggested the Pistons' reign atop the NBA was minutes from ending. They trailed the Miami Heat by six points, on the road, midway through the fourth quarter. They were shooting poorly, defending ineffectively, and were hearing the bloodlust of a sold-out crowd starving for a title.

"We won the championship last year," Pistons guard Chauncey Billups said. "And people still didn't give us that much of a chance in this series."

Detroit went out and proved the naysayers wrong. The Pistons closed the game on a 20-8 run and beat the Heat 88-82 on Monday night in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, sending Detroit back to the NBA Finals, where it'll meet San Antonio, the 2003 champion.

The series opens Thursday night in Texas.

"We've been through a lot together, and it's an unbelievable reward when you can handle situations like this and show poise and toughness," said Detroit coach Larry Brown. "You know, when you coach, it's an honor to coach - but you're blessed when you have a group like that."

Richard Hamilton had 22 points, Rasheed Wallace scored 20, Billups had 18 and Tayshaun Prince added 13 for the Pistons, who became the 17th team in NBA history - out of 91 tries - to win a Game 7 on the road.

Shaquille O'Neal had 27 points and Dwyane Wade, who played 43 minutes despite still battling a strained right rib muscle, added 20 for Miami, which has been to the postseason 10 times and seen its season end at home in seven of those trips. Udonis Haslem had 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Heat, the No. 1 seed in the East after winning 59 regular-season games.

"We had a lot of opportunities to get it done," O'Neal said. "We're not going to make excuses. We just let a phenomenal season slip away."

Detroit never lets anything slip away. The Pistons won for the 10th straight time when needing one victory to clinch a series, the second longest streak behind the Los Angeles Lakers' 12-game run that ended in 2004.

The Pistons, who endured November's brawl with Indiana and the resultant fallout, plus Brown missing some time because of hip surgery and complications that followed - and a fair amount of injuries along the way - also became the first road team to win Game 7 of an Eastern Conference finals in 23 years.

"It's a great feeling because we all came together," Hamilton said. "We all stuck together and we all had each other's back. To be in this situation again, whew, it's a great feeling."