The Pistons have lost more games since they pried Iverson out of the loose, eager fingers of the Nuggets than has the local NBA franchise, meaning little in the infant stages of yet another long slog toward April.

All that matters will be totaled up at the end, and if the Nuggets do not at least get through the first round of the playoffs, they might as well have traded Iverson for a spatula and an egg timer.

And if the Pistons can't get to the NBA Finals with Iverson, what they have gained is a little eye magnet with all his shortcomings.

But this is where we are, so let's go from here. Billups has changed the Nuggets, or so it seems, from a flashy, free-form bunch into lunch-pail dullards, and everyone seems perfectly happy about it.

Even Carmelo Anthony, having lost five points a game from his scoring average, favors winning and less responsibility, though he shouldn't count on those going hand in hand.

Iverson has done just the opposite in Detroit, taking over as he will, without a voice raised against him. As usual, he is The Answer to a question never asked.

It is Allen Iverson and the Pistons now, his name above the title, the name on the back of his jersey more important than the name on the front.

But that is Detroit's problem, or its solution, however it works out. Here, the amazing thing is that what seemed so obvious turns out to be . . . well, obvious. Take away a player who does not play defense and replace with one who takes pride in doing so, and game scores are naturally a dozen points less.

Consider that last season, with Iverson squirming and dribbling the clock away, the Nuggets gave up 107 a game, and now with Billups on guard, it is some 11 points fewer, as is the Nuggets' offense.

Lower-scoring games have never been the front page of the NBA, rather the notion that NBA players are so great they are unstoppable.

Defense does not sell tickets in any sport, even football, where it is more dramatic. This does not count the Broncos, of course, where it is hardly noticeable at all.

All defense does is win, and in the NBA, it wins championships, figuring the last one went as it did because Boston was better at stopping Kobe Bryant than the Lakers were at stopping anyone.

When the Lakers were winning their titles, Shaquille O'Neal's importance was not his scoring but his defensive presence, though O'Neal was always an attraction and still is, like watching his own memorial statue, minus the pigeons.

There does not seem to be a radical difference in the game as it is presented by the Nuggets, except for what seems fresh energy from Kenyon Martin, plus the mixture of scoring, so that one night there will be Linas Kleiza coming through and another J.R. Smith, or Billups, too, if scoring is not his main function.

Going into Friday night's game against the Lakers, Billups had led the Nuggets in scoring since he arrived as often as had Anthony, except the points come less gymnastically, nothing to crank up the highlight reel for sheer astonishment.

The price for Billups is a reduction in amazement, fewer gasps, no reason to put off getting that next beverage because you might miss something startling.

Anthony works less hard for his shots and certainly with less desperation, no longer with the sense that, if he does not shoot, the ball will never come back.

Aside from winning - and the Nuggets did win 50 last season - the question remains as to whether these Nuggets are more fun as now concocted than before, more enjoyable to watch.

If George Karl can be believed, the Nuggets are more fun to coach, which is Karl's world and not ours. But in admitting as much, Karl implies that he just could not control what the Nuggets were before, that Iverson kept stirring a drink that Karl didn't mix.

Gone are the - to use Karl's words - cheap and wasteful possessions, by his count something between 10 and 15 a game, but one has to wonder, if Karl was counting, why he didn't do something about it. Ah, give a coach a playmaker and you take away his alibis.