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AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- There's one more guarantee you can make about the Detroit Pistons and you don't need to put a microphone in Rasheed Wallace's face to document it.

The surest thing about these 2003-04 Pistons: When given a chance to put an early stranglehold on a playoff series, they will let it slip away.

"That's the crazy thing about it," Rip Hamilton said. "It's the same thing like in the New Jersey series. When we had the opportunity to put a team down & we didn't play the way we're capable of playing."

The collapse against the Nets occurred in Game 5, now known as the triple-overtime classic at The Palace that sent the Pistons back to New Jersey trailing 3-2 in the Eastern Conference semifinals. This latest letdown -- in Friday night's 83-68 home defeat to the Indiana Pacers -- sends them back to Indianapolis tied at 2-2 after two days in which everyone outside Indiana had already booked the Pistons' trip to the NBA Finals.

"If I look at this game, I want to stick my head in the sand," Pistons coach Larry Brown said. "But hey, they (the Pacers) had the best road record, the best record in the league. We have to figure out a way to get another one. We can't play any worse than tonight."

The sellout crowd of 22,076 at The Palace would agree with that assessment. The inexplicably flat and disinterested Pistons watched the Pacers run out to a 27-14 lead on 57.9-percent shooting after one quarter despite an injury to Indiana All-Star Jermaine O'Neal.

Detroit pulled within five points twice in the second quarter, but its sloppiness on offense and laziness on defense dug them a hole too deep to escape, falling behind by as much as 23 points in the third quarter.

And with that double-digit deficit came the boos, the first backlash from the home crowd coming after Reggie Miller's runner pushed Indiana's lead to 63-44 with 6:02 remaining in the third.

According to Tayshaun Prince, the Pistons deserved the jeers.

"Obviously, they were disappointed with us," he said. "We've got to bounce back after the way we played today. We have to play for 48 minutes and we have to execute."

"We didn't come out and hit first," said Hamilton, who led the Pistons with 22 points. "They hit first."

The Pistons, who exploded for 85 points in their Game 3 win on Wednesday, are now the ones who have to answer questions about a sputtering offense. They shot only 30.8 percent from the field Friday and, despite a fourth-quarter rally that reduced the deficit to 11, set a franchise low for points in a home playoff game.

"We had a 2-1 lead and we didn't come out and play the way that we're capable of playing," Hamilton said. "We were pretty much strangers and didn't share the ball early, and they really capitalized on that."

Joe Lago is the NBA editor for ESPN.com.