CLEVELAND (AP) – Rasheed Wallace scored 24 points and Richard Hamilton added 22 to help the Detroit Pistons to a 84-72 win Monday night, their sixth straight and second in two days against Cleveland.

Wallace made four 3-pointers, a night after he split open Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ head with an elbow during Detroit’s 90-78 home win. He was fined $5,000 by the NBA on Monday for the flagrant foul.

Cavaliers fans wanted revenge in the rematch – one held a sign that read: “Rasheed Must Bleed!” Wallace was booed loudly during the pre-game introductions and nearly every time he touched the ball.

But the result was the same, another 12-point loss in which Cavaliers were outhustled, allowing the Pistons too many second chances on offense.

LeBron James led Cleveland with 26 points and Ilgauskas, playing with five stitches in his head, scored 18. The Cavaliers have lost four straight.

Chauncey Billups added 15 points and 12 assists. Ben Wallace was scoreless but had 12 rebounds and helped keep James from making easy trips to the rim.

The Cavaliers took their first lead of the second half on James’ fast-break dunk with 5:03 left in the third period. He followed with two jumpers to push the margin to 60-56 on an 8-0 run.

But the Pistons reclaimed the lead early in the fourth quarter with a 11-4 run behind Maurice Evans and Hamilton that made it 73-67.

Tensions nearly boiled over when Ilgauskas pushed Rasheed Wallace to the floor and he got up laughing with 5:47 to play in the second period. Both were called for technical fouls.

A few plays later, Rasheed Wallace chuckled at officials for flagging him on James’ driving lay up. The Detroit player held his jersey out so the officials could see his number and smiled.

James, who was booed after missing his last seven free throws in Friday’s loss to Washington, was 8-of-10 from the line. He struggled from the floor shooting 9-for-22.

Detroit led 44-42 at the half, led by Wallace’s 16 points. Ilgauskas led Cleveland with 14, many on tip-ins of his teammates’ errant shots.

Notes: G Ronald Murray started in place of G Sasha Pavlovic in just his third game since being acquired by the Cavaliers in a trade with Seattle on Thursday. He had just eight points on 2-for-12 shooting after scoring 17 points off the bench Sunday. … The Cavaliers are 1-2 against the Pistons, their win coming Dec. 31 in G Larry Hughes’ last game before undergoing surgery on his broken finger. … Cleveland is 14-15 in Hughes’ absence.

AP-ES-02-27-06 2146EST