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INDIANAPOLIS -- Your move again, Rick Carlisle.

After gambling by sacrificing a defender for another shooter by starting Austin Croshere in Game 4 against the Detroit Pistons, Carlisle injected some much-needed scoring into a dormant Indiana Pacers offense -- and the risk paid off, with Croshere scoring 14 points in a series-tying 83-68 road victory on Friday.

But after Sunday's 83-65 defeat at home to the Pistons, Carlisle will have to come up with another gimmick or game-plan wrinkle to keep the Pacers' season alive in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals on Tuesday.

But the head coach may not have an answer for Indiana's biggest problem.

AP/John HarrellRichard Hamilton has been perpetual motion for the Pistons.

That's because no team has been able to solve the dilemma of defending Richard Hamilton. Not in these playoffs, anyway.

"We're probably not going to stop him," admitted Pacers guard Fred Jones, who has had as much success as any Pacer keeping up with the Pistons' shooting guard. "We just have to try our best to slow him and give him different looks.

"But he's played well throughout the whole playoffs. It's not just against us. He's been doing this the whole playoffs. We just have to slow him and see what we can come up with for the next game."

Hamilton continually ran Indiana defenders into screens Sunday, and knocked down jumper after jumper in scoring a playoff career-high 33 points on 12-of-22 shooting. He scored 13 in a second quarter that gave Detroit a 41-36 halftime lead and added 11 more in a third quarter that helped give the Pistons a 62-53 cushion.

"Tonight, we just wanted to come out and hit first," Hamilton said. "We didn't do that the last game. We moved the ball from one side to the other and made plays."

The second-quarter summed up Indiana's frustrations, and no one was more flustered than Reggie Miller.

Miller, who had been enjoying his one-on-one game of cat-and-mouse with Hamilton, gave chase but watched Hamilton score Detroit's final eight points of the first half. Still upset over a series of calls against him, including a touch foul that led to a 3-point play by Hamilton, Miller got T'd up by referee Steve Javie with 53.1 seconds left.

Guess who made the ensuing free throw.

"He did a great job of moving off of screens tonight," Miller said of Hamilton, who was a perfect 8-for-8 from the line as well. "We did a good job against him in the fourth quarter, but by then he was already on a roll."

"I always learned, definitely from playing with coach Doug Collins when I was in Washington, that if you learn how to move without the ball, not everybody can guard you," Hamilton said. "I just keep moving ... because I got so much energy. I just keep moving."

Hamilton made his first four shots of the second half to push Detroit's lead into double digits. He hit jump shots from 16, 13 and 17 feet, then blew by Miller on a cut down the lane to score off a feed from Chauncey Billups for a 3-point play and a 53-42 advantage.

"He responded well for us tonight. He played huge," Tayshaun Prince said of Hamilton. "He got some big and-ones for us, got to the foul line and made some plays. Man, he was unbelievable."

Joe Lago is the NBA editor for ESPN.com.