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Detroit Pistons forward Josh Smith, right, shown here against the Washington Wizards' Marcin Gortat, bristled at head coach Maurice Cheeks' suggestion that he didn't play hard Saturday.

(The Associated Press)

WASHINGTON -- Whatever happened in that locker room Saturday night, the

left here with their first tangible turmoil of the season.

Josh Smith didn't play the second half of a

, the second time head coach Maurice Cheeks has made that decision this season.

This time, Smith suggested Cheeks called him out for not playing hard, and that he took "real offense" to the accusation.

Smith also was benched the second half of a Nov. 12 game at Golden State.

"Like I told y'all before when we had this conversation, when you hit adverse times, characters are gonna be tested," Smith said. "It's either that we're gonna come closer together and make it all one team, or are you gonna use a scapegoat to get away from what's really at hand?"

What's really at hand is the Pistons (14-18) have lost four of five, bombed in a two-game road trip against sub-.500 teams this weekend, and now have their first hint of internal upheaval.

How long it lasts remains to be seen.

Asked if Smith will start Monday's home rematch with the Wizards, Cheeks replied, "I assume he will. I don't know why he wouldn't. We'll wait until that next game gets there."

Smith said he isn't inclined to have a personal discussion with Cheeks about their disagreement before the next game.

"To me, it's over with," Smith said. "But you know, some people hold grudges longer than others. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not saying that he (Cheeks) does. I don't know.

"But I'm not the type of person that really likes to go all the time in the coach's office and have one-on-one sitdowns. I'm more of a team morale guy, worrying about what we can do, as far as teammates are concerned, to make ourselves more successful."

Cheeks declined to offer up a reason why Smith didn't play after four points and four rebounds in the first half.

"I just felt I wanted to make a change and stayed with the guys I went with," he said.

He admitted he would have liked to bench the entire starting five to begin the second half.

"If I could have, yeah," Cheeks said, when asked that question. "The way the first half went, yeah. But the way the first half went, I really couldn't."

So what he did was bench Smith and rookie guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

The difference was Caldwell-Pope played again.

Smith didn't.

What rankled Smith most was what he perceived as Cheeks questioning his effort.

"It's an honor for me to play, you know what I'm saying? So when anybody challenges -- or anything about the fact that, you know, about me not wanting to play -- then I take real offense to it," Smith said.

This was the third time Cheeks has disciplined Smith this season. In addition to the two second-half benchings, Smith also was omitted from the starting lineup for a Nov. 22 game against Atlanta after missing practice the day before.

That practice was called on the team plane, after a back-to-back which concluded in Atlanta, Smith's hometown. NBA teams typically don't practice after playing back-to-backs, and Smith wasn't on the team plane when Cheeks surprised everyone by calling the practice.

Cheeks dismissed the political pressure which can accompany taking such measures against a player like Smith, who became the Pistons' highest-paid player when he signed a four-year, $54 million free-agent contract in July.

"My job is to try to win games," Cheeks said. "That's it. That's my job. I just try to do the best I can. I can't get into free agent here, free agent there. I can't get into that. My job is to try to win games and that's what I'm trying to do."

Smith emphasized that he and Cheeks have that in common, but admitted he has found it uncomfortable being called out so frequently, and publicly, in his first 34 games as a Piston.

"I mean, it's unfair," he said. "Like I told you before, I play this game hard, each and every day. I'm gracious for the opportunity just to be able to play my dream. When I was younger, I played this game for free, year-round. This is what I love to do. So why wouldn't I want to come out here and try to put my best foot forward every time I step out on the court?

"I'm competitive. I want to win at everything, whether it's card games, whether it's playing a video game, talking trash to my friends -- I want to win bad. And that's anything I do."

Smith added that he isn't sure whether that ultra-competitive nature sometimes gets misinterpreted.

"I'm an aggressive person," he said. "I'm not passive. Maybe a passive person that takes life that way won't understand an aggressive person. An aggressive person that's of my caliber will understand it. So I really can't worry about what people perceive of me, because it's just things that people might say. They don't know me. They don't know me on a day-to-day basis."

Cheeks was quick to shift focus back to the Pistons' putrid effort, even after his own methodology prompted the controversy.

"The game wasn't about Josh Smith," Cheeks said. "The game was we got beat. It's not just about Josh Smith. We got beat. We got beat pretty good. It wasn't just Josh Smith. It's the overall game. It wasn't just Josh Smith."

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