The team with the best player wins. We see it consistently in playoff series. Elite scorers and facilitators have an enormous impact when on the court. Once rotations shorten and opponents face off as many as seven times in a row, the side with the most accomplished athlete generally wins.

The Detroit Pistons have found a way around that throughout their history, and it began with the Bad Boys.

Competing against legends like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, the Pistons rarely had the best player on the court in playoff series during the late 1980s and early 1990s. But they habitually produced victories with terrific interior defenders in Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer and a point guard in Isiah Thomas who always played like he had something to prove.

The result: back-to-back championships in 1990 and 1991 despite significant talent deficits.

And then, in 2004, the Bad Boys were reborn.

Detroit acquired Rasheed Wallace in February, who, alongside Ben Wallace, created a formidable interior tandem unlike anything the Motor City had seen since Rodman left town. The team already possessed the point guard with something to prove in journeyman Chauncey Billups, who by that time had earned the nicknamed “Mr. Big Shot.”

It was a nice story. The team played an ugly, blue-collar type of basketball, befitting their namesake.  But they never felt like a championship squad. They were seemingly always going to be less talented than their opponents if they made it deep into the playoffs.

The gap never felt wider than when they entered the 2004 NBA Finals. Sure, they made it through the weak Eastern Conference. But now they faced the original Super Team of the 2000s—the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers rostered four future Hall of Famers. Newcomers Karl Malone and Gary Payton desperately sought titles after having previously run into a legend of their own when taking on Michael Jordan. The Pistons’ outlook was, in turn, bleak. If the team with the best player wins, they were at an even bigger disadvantage than normal since, between talent and postseason experience, they might not have enjoyed one of the four best athletes on the floor.

But then they played the games.

Future Hall-of-Fame status didn’t matter. Playoff experience didn’t matter. Defense mattered.

The Pistons uglied up the series in a way that surely made Laimbeer proud. They held the superstar Lakers to a 96.1 offensive rating, more than nine points per 100 possessions under their regular season average, en route to winning four of five games.

The media immediately scrambled for narratives to explain the shocking victory. Payton and Malone were injured in the Finals, which was certainly a factor. But the focus primarily shifted to team basketball. The Pistons played like a collective. The Lakers operated like a bunch of individuals.

Detroit certainly executed in unison during the 2004 season, but the singular parts mattered a great deal. The acquisition of Rasheed Wallace dramatically shifted the team’s trajectory. The Pistons no longer existed just as a nice story; they were an instant contender.

Among the team’s 20 most-used lineups, Wallace was a part of only five. Three iterations were the most successful of any of Detroit’s most-common combinations. With Sheed replacing Mehmet Okur, the new three-man union of Billups and the Wallaces outscored opponents by 18.2 points per 100 possessions, up from a 9.1 mark with Okur.

The Wallace-times-two frontcourt dominated the paint, blocking 5.2 more shots per 100 possessions than their opponents when they were on the hardwood together. When Ben operated alongside Okur, the Pistons out-swatted their counterparts by only 2.5.

Rasheed was a formidable presence in the restricted area and far more adept at defending companion big men than Okur. His occupation of the middle allowed Ben to do what he did best: roam and conquer. Though he was dubbed Big Ben, his true value came not from being big and standing still, but wreaking havoc all across the court.

The four-time Defensive Player of the Year combined quick feet and impeccable timing to disrupt opposing offenses and help teammates anywhere and everywhere. Wallace lacked ideal size for a big man, but he mitigated that by remaining intensely focused every second he spent on the floor.

If opponents took a pass for granted, he immediately pounced:

When an adversary saw an opening to the rim, he eliminated it:

He routinely erased mistakes in a way that allowed his colleagues to play more aggressively than they could have otherwise afforded with a lesser rim protector. 

Diluted down further: He served as the cornerstone of the third-best defense of the three-point era:

According to NBA Math’s historic defensive points saved data, in fact, Wallace’s performance still easily eclipses all players from championship units since 1999. His score in 2004 is 119.7 points better than the second best (Tim Duncan in 2007)—larger than the gap between Shaquille O’Neal and Robert Horry in 2000.

The difference on his own team was cavernous: Detroit’s next most-valuable defender was Tayshaun Prince, the small forward who was often called upon to guard the rival’s best wing.  Prince’s length prevented a lot of penetration the rest of the roster could not, but his DPS still paled in comparison to Wallace’s mark; the difference between Wallace and Prince (280.9 points) was larger than the chasm between the best and worst defenders on 15 of the past 19 title squads.

Wallace also led the league in defensive rating, finished fourth in block percentage and grabbed more defensive rebounds than anyone but Kevin Garnett. His dominance was so significant that he compares favorably with everyone but the all-time greats in the total points added department:

Despite being very limited offensively, Wallace rates reasonably well with the best players on recent championship teams, excluding outliers like O’Neal, LeBron James and Stephen Curry. His TPA is roughly equivalent to Duncan’s 2003 season, Manu Ginobili’s 2005 performance and Kobe Bryant’s 2010 output.

Although his lack of scoring ability deflated his overall value, Wallace’s defense secured his status as a truly elite player on a title team.

In terms of second fiddles, Billups comes off measuring similarly rosy, with a better or comparable TPA to nearly half of the other great sidekicks. His 2004 score even surpassed David Robinson’s in 1999, when he was the top earner of the Spurs’ championship contingent (admittedly during a lockout-shortened season).

While Ben Wallace anchored the defense, Billups quarterbacked the offense, scoring efficiently and manufacturing points for a group that ranked 18th prior to the playoffs. Sure, Richard Hamilton paced the team with 17.6 points per game, but Billups was the unquestioned leader. He lagged behind Hamilton only slightly and filled up the bucket much more efficiently by nailing shots from long distance and frequenting the free-throw line. 

Hamilton spent the majority of his time on the court without the ball in his hands. Billups operated the offense and found the Detroit shooting guard coming off screens for a constant barrage of mid-range jumpers.  

When Hamilton was replaced in the starting lineup with veteran Lindsey Hunter, the Pistons’ free-throw advantage skyrocketed from plus-6.3 to plus-25.8. Without having to force-feed the ball to Hamilton, Billups was able to move more freely and put teammates and himself in positions to visit the charity stripe.  

And though he earned his Mr. Big Shot nickname by playing hero ball (occasionally too often), Billups was particularly adept at limiting mistakes. Despite being the primary ball-handler and attempting a far larger number of unassisted shots than Hamilton (34.4 vs. 58 percent), the latter notched a higher mistake rate. When Billups left the court, the Pistons turnover percentage jumped from 16.3 to 19 percent.

With a 112 individual offensive rating, Mr. Big Shot’s scoring prowess far exceeded that of his teammates, with Okur ringing in second at 107. So while Billups did not impact the game as Ben Wallace did, he too was critical to Detroit’s success.

Of course, the perception of those Pistons remains that their five starters were similarly-valued contributors. But the numbers tell a different story. After their top two leaders, the rest of the roster bears resemblance to recent championship–team structures.  They had productive pieces across the board, but two in particular stood out more than anyone else.

And it was Ben Wallace who shone brightest.

Follow Matt on Twitter @waymatth.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from NBA Math, Basketball-Reference or NBA.com.