SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- To hear the Sacramento Kings tell it, the occasional team meeting can have a mighty positive effect. So, too, can some better team defense.

Whether one led to the other can be debated, but what couldn't be argued Wednesday was that the Kings played as well as they have at any time in this young season in carving out a 101-92 victory over the Detroit Pistons at Sleep Train Arena.

"The first half was probably the best we've played all year," embattled Kings coach George Karl said. "The second half was a bit more of a hang-on then I enjoy, but with three guys out of gas, I thought we still had a great defensive commitment. It was good."

Center DeMarcus Cousins scored a season-high 33 points, and forward Rudy Gay tied his season best with 25 for Sacramento. Without Kings guards Darren Collison (left hamstring strain) and Seth Curry (right ankle sprain) unavailable, Rajon Rondo played 48 minutes for the second consecutive contest and finished with 14 points, 15 assists and 11 rebounds.

Sacramento also held Detroit to 38.2 percent shooting from the field, its best defensive effort of the season.

The performance absolutely was needed. The Kings (2-7) brought a six-game losing streak into the contest, a tie for the worst start in the team's Sacramento history, with all sorts of dirty laundry emerging from the clubhouse, primarily from Cousins. The sixth-year center acknowledged he cussed out Karl during a postgame tirade Thursday after a 106-88 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.

The team held a meeting of executives, coaches and players Tuesday, and Cousins issued an apology before the contest, writing in a text to Yahoo's Mark Spears, "It is no secret that we are all frustrated with losing -- me more than anyone. ... I let my frustrations get the best of me ... that is my bad. For the record, my frustration is not about any one person or player or coach. There is no one person to blame. All of us are accountable."

Then he went out and scored 15 points in the opening quarter to go along with Gay's 12, and Sacramento built a 36-23 lead. Cousins hit four 3-pointers in the game, matching his career high set in the Kings' opener this season.

"Shoot, I'll take the heat," Cousins said. "If it means we win, I'll take the heat every night."

Sacramento built an 89-70 lead early in the final quarter before a late charge by Detroit nearly ruined the home team's night. The Pistons' used a 19-5 blitz over a 6:55 span and were as close as 94-89 on a driving layup by guard Reggie Jackson with 3:49 left.

However, forward Marco Belinelli, Rondo and Cousins combined to make five free throws, pushing the lead back to 10 points with under two minutes left and ending Detroit's hopes.

"I don't care what type of team you have, a veteran team, when you're in a losing streak, it's heavy," Karl said. "It's like a weight. I call it 'killing the monkey.' I'm not sure the panic button was pushed. You play seven games and have a six-game losing streak, it happens. I thought the last two days have been good days for us."

Jackson and forward Marcus Morris scored 16 points apiece to pace Detroit (5-3), which was unable to match its best start since the 2008-09 season. The Pistons fell to 2-2 on a six-game trip. Center Andre Drummond, averaging 19.4 points and 19.6 rebounds in Detroit's first seven games, had 14 points and 17 rebounds.

Jackson, Detroit's leading scorer at 22.7 points per game entering the contest, shot 5-for-15 from the floor, 1-for-6 from 3-point range.

"It's always hard to find things (offensively) when you're not getting stops," Jackson said. "We had some good looks that didn't go down, balls that went in and out, especially late, that could've made a difference."

For a change, the shots were falling for Gay. He canned five of six attempts in the opening period, part of a 10-for-14 shooting night that came on the heels of 35 percent shooting in the previous four games.

Rondo's performance also helped Sacramento. The triple-double was his second of the season and the 24th of his career.

NOTES: Pistons C Andre Drummond scored 136 points and grabbed 137 rebounds in Detroit's first seven games, the first player since Wilt Chamberlain in 1970 with the Lakers to total that many in both categories through his team's first seven games, according to Elias Sports Bureau. ... The Kings' first eight games were against Western Conference teams with a combined .586 winning percentage (34-24) through the first two weeks. The combined winning percentage of the next eight opponents, all from the supposedly weaker Eastern Conference, was .532 (33-29). ... The six-game trip is Detroit's longest of the season. The Pistons take an annual long trip every November, because the circus comes to the Palace. They have not finished the so-called circus trip above .500 since 2008. ... Longtime Kings executive Gordon "Scotty" Stirling, who spent 27 seasons with the team, died Wednesday at age 86. Stirling also was a general manager for the Golden State Warriors and the NFL's Oakland Raiders after once covering that team for the Oakland Tribune.