Last night, after the 76ers' second ugly loss in a week, Allen Iverson was furious about being benched for nearly the entire second half. He said that if the club does not like the way he is playing, it should trade him.

The Sixers' star guard, and the league's reigning scoring champion, exploded after a 104-91 destruction by the Detroit Pistons at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Iverson finished with a team-high 19 points but was benched for the final 20 minutes, 15 seconds.

Sixers coach Larry Brown, who speaks with reporters before the players are allowed to, pointed to the team's lackluster effort in the first half and said it had been necessary to go with the players who could get the job done. Brown never mentioned Iverson's name and even shoved a tape recorder away from a Detroit radio personality who tried to interrogate him on the matter.

Iverson didn't need such prodding, directing his venom right at Brown.

"Ever since I came back, it's been, 'We're not playing this way, we're not playing that way,' " said Iverson, who returned last Saturday in a blowout loss to Charlotte after a 10-game absence due to a fractured right thumb. "For some reason, my style doesn't fit this team anymore. If that's the way it is, something needs to happen. Something's got to give.

"I'm willing to deal with whatever. I've been in this league for four years. I've been through it all. I've been through trade rumors with this guy [Brown]; I've been through everything with him. So right now . . . I don't like what's going on. I know I wasn't playing that bad . . . to get what I got. I've never been done like that ever in my career. So it's something different to me."

Iverson, as loquacious as ever, wouldn't allow any interruptions.

"I need to have a meeting with somebody that matters or something, because that was ugly," he continued, preferring to discuss his benching instead of the team's play. "If I'm hurting this team, if my style is hurting this team, I need to get the hell out of here. Put me on the [trading] block, too. I've been on the blocks before. I've been through that; I know how to deal with that.

"When I get back to Philadelphia, I'll let it be known. . . . And I mean every word I'm saying. Every single word."

When told of Iverson's remarks, Brown, who had been sitting just a few feet away, said, "I'm not going to comment on anything Allen says after a game like this."

After Detroit took a 30-25 lead into the second quarter, the game grew uglier by the minute.

Jerome Williams was a rebounding demon, grabbing 12 rebounds to go along with his 12 points - all in the second quarter. Williams and Grant Hill (20 points) helped Detroit score 16 straight points during a 21-4 run, putting the Pistons up, 58-39, with 3:10 remaining in the first half.

The Pistons (12-12) led by as much as 73-50 with 8:15 left in the third when Brown took all five starters out of the game. Eventually, he reinserted Tyrone Hill for one minute in the fourth quarter, but Iverson, along with Eric Snow and Theo Ratliff, never returned.

Iverson, who has been shooting about 39 percent from the field since his return, didn't seem to notice that, however, reiterating his displeasure over his own benching, along with several remarks Brown had made about him in the past.

"Right now, I don't know what the hell I'm seeing on the floor," Iverson said, sarcastically. "You need to ask [Brown] what went on during the game, because I don't know . . . about nothing. I don't know nothing about basketball, so I don't know what happened.

"I don't know happened out there. I don't know why they got ahead. I don't know why we couldn't make any shots. I don't know why we couldn't stop anybody. I guess 95 percent of it is probably me . . . to let anybody else tell it."

Although this wasn't the first time Iverson had exploded, he never before had talked about a trade.

He didn't do so during the 1997-98 season - Brown's first in Philadelphia - when, in the negotiating year of his contract, rumors were swirling of a potential trade to Toronto for then-Raptors guard Damon Stoudamire. And he didn't do so last season when he cursed at Brown during a game for keeping him on the bench too long.

"I want to play," Iverson said. "Simple as that. . . . I want to play. I want to be on the floor. I've never sat out the whole second half, and I've played worse.

"But when this thing is over, I'm going to be the bad guy, regardless. However you look at it, I'm going to be the bad guy. But I'll deal with it."

Last January, Iverson signed a $70.9 million contract extension through the 2003-04 season