The Pistons’ Allen Iverson, left, collides with Rajon Rondo of the Celtics while chasing a loose ball during the first half of last night’s game in Boston. Rondo scored a season-high 18 points and added eight assists. Iverson had 16 points and four assists.

AP / Charles Krupa

BOSTON — You won’t hear Doc Rivers calling last night’s 98-80 victory over the Detroit Pistons a statement game.

Nor will you hear any of the Celtics saying that.

After all, it’s only November.

Statement games are made in the playoffs.

And even though last night’s battle against the Pistons was a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference finals, the Pistons are still trying to find their way after trading away Chauncey Billups and Cheikh Samb for Allen Iverson, so that took away a little bit of the spice.

But there’s no question that last night’s victory was a big one, Boston forward Kevin Garnett said.

“The overall effort was there,” said Garnett. “It was a huge game for us. Detroit is probably not only one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference, but in our league. …We watched them [beat] Cleveland [Wednesday] night, so we knew we had to bring it.”

The win improved the Celtics to 7-1 at home and 11-2 overall.

The triumph came against a good opponent, which had won four of its last five games, including victories over the 8-1 Los Angeles Lakers and 9-3 Cleveland Cavaliers.

But, according to the Celtics, it’s too early in the season to declare statement games.

They say that every team has Boston circled on its calendar because the Celtics are the defending NBA champions.

So every game will be a big game for their opponent because every team wants to beat the world champions.

That makes every Celtics game an important one in their eyes.

“Our team, we strive for the best and we don’t want to make excuses,” said Boston forward Leon Powe. “...We want to win all of them.”

Rivers often talks about improving in every game. He says the Celtics need to be a better team than they were last year if they want to have a chance at successfully defend their title.

His players believe that, so they are doing everything they can to improve.

“We don’t think we’ve played our best basketball,” Boston guard Ray Allen said. “We’re trying to improve every [game]. That’s the thing, in the regular season we want to get better. We want to hit our stride. We want to get to a point where we know what we are going to rely on and where we are going to rely on it.”

The Celtics have had the luxury of not having to rely on any one player in every game during the season. Paul Pierce was labeled as “Superman” by his teammates after scoring 22 points in the fourth quarter against Toronto earlier this season, and then hitting the game-winning shot against Atlanta two nights later, but when he has off-nights like last night, other players have stepped up.

Rajon Rondo outplayed Detroit All-Star Iverson last night, scoring a season-high 18 points, with eight assists, to Iverson’s 16 points and four assists.

“Rondo matches up with Iverson quickness for quickness,” Pierce said. “We don’t expect him to outscore Iverson, so that was a big plus on a night like this. That takes a lot of pressure off of a lot of other guys.”

Kevin Garnett returned to Boston’s lineup after serving a one-game suspension and was a force on the both ends of the court. He scored 15 points and had four rebounds.

Ray Allen scored 12 points and Tony Allen (11 points, 5 rebounds), Eddie House (11 points) and Leon Powe (7 points, 7 rebounds) played well off of the bench. All 12 of Boston’s players scored at least two points.

“It was a great team effort, with Rondo leading the charge,” Pierce said.

Detroit began the game by knocking down five of its first six shots to jump out to a 13-2 lead before the Celtics knew what had hit them. But after that, it was all Boston.

After tying the game by the end of the first quarter, at 21-21, Boston’s second unit dominated the early minutes of the second quarter to set the tone for the rest of the game.

Tony Allen scored five second-quarter points before House buried back-to-back 3-pointers that gave Boston a 38-27 cushion with 5:35 remaining in the half. The Pistons never got within seven points of Boston the rest of the game.

Rasheed Wallace (14 points, 6 rebounds), who was in foul trouble for most of the night, led Detroit, along with Iverson and Richard Hamilton (12 points, 3 assists).

Ray Allen believes Boston and Detroit will meet again in the playoffs.

“Either way, we’re going to see them in the playoffs,” Allen said. “It doesn’t matter how. We hope to have home-court advantage, but we’re going to see them. They have veterans on their team with playoff experience.”

Notes: Boston took a 77-57 lead into the fourth quarter, so Rivers used that opportunity to give his younger troops some playing time. Third-year center Patrick O’Bryant scored a season-high four points in the fourth quarter, and second-year point guard Gabe Pruitt played a season-high 12 minutes, scoring two points…Garnett said he is looking forward to playing his former team, Minnesota, tonight.

Next Game

Tonight

at Minnesota

8 p.m.

roblee@projo.com