"It's more disappointing to me," said McDyess, who became the first Pistons player since Ben Wallace (on April 9, 2006 against Indiana) to record 20 or more rebounds in a game. "We played hard, just came up short."

Said Pistons forward Tayshaun Prince: "A team like that, when you have a decent lead, you have to put them away."

The Knicks trailed the entire fourth quarter, but tied the game at 101 after Larry Hughes made three free throws after he was fouled by Richard Hamilton with 10 seconds to play.

"I wasn't sure if he was going to foul me, but I had a pretty good look," Hughes said. "Once he got close enough though, I did draw a little contact on my own just to make sure if I didn't make the shot that I could get the foul."

Detroit had one last chance to win the game in regulation, but Rodney Stuckey's pass to McDyess sailed out of bounds.

"I was going for the boards. The play happened so fast," said McDyess, who thought Stuckey was going to take the final shot. "I thought, 'If he shoots it, I got the rebound if he misses.' "

In overtime, the Knicks never trailed after Hughes' 12-foot runner with 3:35 to play.

Detroit (32-31) has lost two of its past three after winning its previous four games.

Detroit's execution was well off the mark when the game mattered most.

Even Richard Hamilton, who has been Detroit's best player the past couple of weeks, didn't seem like himself in the game's final minutes.

He finished with a team-high 27 points, but he also had a season-high eight turnovers -- six of which came in the second half and overtime.

New York used a hard trap on Hamilton down the stretch. That usually leads to others getting open for good looks at the basket.

But the Pistons didn't swing the ball as well as they had in previous games, which led to a series of contested shot attempts with the shot clock winding down.

"We just didn't make good decisions with the Basketball," Pistons coach Michael Curry said. "Rip's been a really good playmaker for us. He just had a lot of turnovers tonight."

Even with the turnovers, the Pistons still had control of the Knicks for most of the night.

After battling to a 28-all tie after the first quarter, the Pistons closed out the second quarter with a 9-2 run and led 56-48 at the half.

Detroit continued its solid play through most of the third quarter, which ended with the Pistons ahead 81-71.

From there, the Knicks gradually cut into Detroit's lead in large part behind the play of Nate Robinson.

Robinson led all scorers with 30 points, 14 of which came in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Wednesday's loss hurt all the Pistons, but few took it as hard as McDyess.

"You just have to look at all the positives you did and build off of that and take it into the next game," McDyess said. "It is really disappointing for us as players to come up short like we did."