AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Midway through the fourth quarter Tuesday, the Detroit Pistons were hoping to tighten up their defense. They far exceeded any reasonable expectations of that goal.

In a game where coach Stan Van Gundy saw plenty of breakdowns, his club held the New York Knicks scoreless in the last 5:40 and pulled away to a 102-89 victory at The Palace.

Van Gundy pleaded for better defensive effort during a timeout with 5:30 remaining.

"We just kept saying in the timeout that to win, we're going to need to make a defensive stand," said Van Gundy, who collected his 450th coaching victory. "We were skating on thin ice for a long, long time. They'd get it down to three and we'd get a couple of hoops. Then the last (5:30), we were able to get it done."

New York missed its last nine shot attempts and committed two turnovers during the drought.

"It's real satisfying," said Detroit forward Tobias Harris, who had a game-high 25 points and 10 rebounds. "It's something that when we came into the timeout, that was our emphasis. Let's go out there and get stops, let's get rebounds and let's see how many we can string together to come out with this victory."

Harris picked up two fouls in the early going and only scored eight first-half points but shot 6 for 8 from the field and 4 for 4 from the foul line after halftime.

"I picked up a couple of tick-tack fouls," he said. "When I got the first one, I probably should have relaxed a little bit but I didn't. When I got back out there, I got some good looks. I'm not going to shy away and not be aggressive."

It didn't faze the 6-foot-9 Harris that he was being shadowed by 7-3 Kristaps Porzingis.

"Just get him running a little bit," Harris said of his offensive approach. "I know he's tall and long but for me, it was a matter of picking my angles and getting my balance, then try to go by him from there."

Marcus Morris supplied 22 points and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope contributed 19 as Detroit (3-1) won its third straight.

Carmelo Anthony led New York (1-2) with 24 points. Derrick Rose had 19 points and Porzingis added 18.

Anthony seemed to be in a good offensive rhythm, then shot 2 for 9 from the field with a turnover in the fourth quarter. Overall, the Knicks shot 5 for 21 in the fourth and scored 10 points.

"It just didn't go down tonight but when the shots aren't falling, that's when we have to depend on our defense even more," Rose said. "We're playing against tough teams and we have to come out and compete on the defensive end, especially when we're not making shots."

Coach Jeff Hornacek felt his team tired down the stretch.

"At the beginning of the game, a lot of the focus was on the offense," he said. "I thought they played well the second half and maybe that took a certain amount of conditioning on offense and defense. ... We just looked like we ran out of gas at the end."

The Pistons carried an 86-79 lead in the fourth. Detroit led by 12 early in the third but the Knicks chipped away behind Anthony and Porzingis. New York cut the Pistons' edge to 80-77 on a Porzingis tip-in but Detroit's reserves nudged it back to seven.

When Harris hit a pull-up jumper with 7:24 remaining, the Pistons were up 93-83. The Knicks used a 6-1 spurt, capped by a Rose bank-in, to cut the deficit back to five. But New York never scored again.

Following a New York turnover, Caldwell-Pope dropped in a 3-pointer to make it 99-89. Harris' three-point play with 1:11 remaining ended any remaining suspense.

The Pistons led by as much as 13 late in the first half and still had a 64-55 advantage at the break.

NOTES: Pistons SG Reggie Bullock was inactive for the fourth straight game because of back spasms. ... Both teams complete the second end of back-to-backs Wednesday. The Pistons travel to Brooklyn to face the Nets, while the Knicks have a home game against Houston. ... Pistons C Andre Drummond owns 10 20-20 games (points and rebounds) since entering the league during the 2012-13 season, the most of any player in that span. Coach Stan Van Gundy wants to rest Drummond for shorter stretches this season. "He's capable of playing big minutes," he said. "We want him out there a lot." ... New York won five of the last seven season series. ... Knicks F Carmelo Anthony averaged 21.3 points in 27 career games before Tuesday against the Pistons, his lowest against any Eastern Conference opponent.