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AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Richard Hamilton had experienced the challenge of trying to score against Ron Artest many times before, back during their college days in the Big East.

"He's an animal," Hamilton said during Tuesday's morning shootaround.

So it came as no surprise to the former Connecticut Husky (Hamilton) that the ex-St. John's star (Artest) reacted the way he did when the two drew contact late in the fourth quarter with the score tied in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Hamilton tried to gain position to set a screen but did so by leading with his elbow. Artest responded with a not-so-subtle shot to the face of the masked Hamilton and was whistled for a flagrant foul.

Hamilton sank both free throws to give the Pistons their first lead of the night. The Pistons regained possession and added two more points on Rasheed Wallace's flying follow slam for a 63-59 advantage with 3:44 remaining.

The sequence sparked Detroit -- or, as Wallace put it, "upped the ante late" -- to finally overcome a dreadful offensive performance and score a 69-65 victory over the Indiana Pacers to win the East and advance to the NBA Finals.

"I don't know if he hit me with a forearm or if he hit me with a fist. He hit me with something," Hamilton said. "Ron gets some in every now and then. It ain't nothing I hadn't seen before.

"I think it energized me. I'm happy I got hit. Because sometimes it takes you to get hit like that to get you right, get you ready, get you focused to do what you have to do to win the game."

Artest's side of the story, of course, was different. The way he saw it, Hamilton threw an elbow into his stomach on purpose and Artest reacted accidentally, partly in defense.

"He's so skinny that they [the referees] didn't see it," Artest said. "I just put up my hands on him."

Hamilton got the worst of the exchange, falling to the floor after Artest came up high with both hands. While the Pistons' trainer tended to Hamilton, his teammates made sure there wasn't going to be any retaliation.

"Everyone was angry. We wanted to fight at that time," Corliss Williamson said. "But when you look at the situation we were in, we tried to turn that into positive energy. And we rallied around Rip."

Added Wallace: "We were telling him to keep a cool head. It was still a tight ball game."

Hamilton, who had talked about having to hit the Pacers first in Detroit's Game 5 win, got the last shot in against Artest.

With the Pistons up 63-61, Hamilton got the ball on the left wing and left Artest a step behind to sink a running jumper for a four-point bulge with 1:13 to play. Hamilton ran up court, turned around and screamed in Artest's direction.

Despite being guarded by the Defensive Player of the Year, Hamilton managed to keep his streak of 20-point games in the series intact. After missing six of his eight first-half shots and scoring just six points, Hamilton shot 5-of-7 after halftime to finish with a game-high 21 points.

"This whole series has been an all-out war and we knew it was going to be a low-scoring, grind-out series," Hamilton said. "And that's the way it proved to be tonight. We stuck with it, stayed with it and got the win."

Joe Lago is the NBA editor for ESPN.com.