R10 Preview: Perth Wildcats vs Adelaide 36ers

When: 9.30pm (AEDT), Monday 22 March

Where: RAC Arena, Perth

Broadcast: ESPN; Sky Sports NZ; SBS On Demand; Twitch

The last time
Perth 97 (Cotton 34, Blanchfield 20, Mooney 17) d Adelaide 88 (Paul 25, Giddey 14, Johnson 14), Round 9, John Cain Arena, Melbourne

Tom Jones claims it’s not unusual, but this certainly was. For most of the first half it was the Josh Giddey and Brandon Paul show, the Next Star slicing and dicing his way to 10 dimes in the opening 20, while the new star drained almost every look he could find from the perimeter en route to 16 points as Adelaide took a 26-point lead. But the second half, as it often is, was the Bryce Cotton show. Fuelled by the Cats’ aggressive defence, the MVP was unstoppable, scoring 20 points as Perth not only retrieved the deficit, but won going away.


The now
The ladder-leading Perth Wildcats. It has a ring to it, pun intended. After a modest 2-3 start, as COVID impacted their early-season preparation, the Cats have gone a blistering 8-1, holding opponents below 80 points in six of those nine games. At the other end, Cotton, John Mooney and Todd Blanchfield are forming the league’s best three-way punch, threatening to outdo the Cotton-Kay-White ticket that carried Perth to back-to-back titles.

And then there were six? Not quite, but with 11 losses on the board halfway through their season, the 36ers join Cairns and NZ in serious danger of falling out of playoff contention, and the ankle injury to Giddey certainly isn’t helping that cause. There is reason for optimism with Paul firing out of quarantine and Isaac Humphries to return, but their D sits seventh in the NBL and their offence ninth, having cracked 90 just once in their past nine.


The stats

 - In the first half against Perth, the 36ers took 20 two-point attempts and 10 free throws, scoring 36 points from ones and twos. After half-time they had only 13 attempts inside and 2 free throws and managed just 7 points from ones and twos

 - In that first half Adelaide grabbed 4 offensive rebounds from 15 missed field goals. After intermission they managed 1 o-board from 21 misses

 - The Sixers pulled in 20 d-boards from 29 Perth misses in the first half, but the Wildcats grabbed 11 o-boards from 21 misses in the final 20 minutes  

 - Adelaide won points from turnovers 4-3 in the first half, while the Wildcats won that stat 17-0 after interval


The key men

John Mooney – In Round 9 the 36ers dodged a bullet as Mooney, who shoots 56 per cent on two-pointers, went 3-of-12 inside the paint. Interestingly, after a stretch of five games where he hit 8-of-12 from the arc, Mooney has taken just 4 triple attempts in the past four games while averaging 11 attempts inside. Without Humphries anchoring Adelaide’s middle, expect Perth to go inside to their centre again, and expect more efficient results.

Brandon Paul – Two weeks quarantine? No problems. Paul gave great credit to 36ers’ high-performance staff for helping him prepare for life on the outside and he wasn’t kidding, producing 45 points in 60 minutes out of the gate on 10-of-19 from distance. After almost exclusively hoisting triples in his debut, Paul attacked the paint more and dished off three dimes against SE Melbourne, something he’ll need to repeat and more with Giddey out.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Massive...<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeAreSixers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeAreSixers</a> <a href="https://t.co/2W6lmLlK2t">pic.twitter.com/2W6lmLlK2t</a></p>&mdash; Adelaide 36ers (@Adelaide36ers) <a href="https://twitter.com/Adelaide36ers/status/1373187248124952576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


The quotes

Perth Wildcats coach Trevor Gleeson summed it up pretty well.

“I've been in the league as a coach or assistant coach for 17 years and I've never seen or been a part of that big a turnaround,” he said.

“How we played in that third quarter, especially the first five minutes, I think we held them scoreless (and) got into the game, I think it was a 17-0 run or 19-0 run, just a remarkable turnaround.”

So what happened?

“The defending champs came out in the second half and were more physical than us and showed a level of toughness that we’re trying to get to,” Sixers boss Conner Henry said frankly.

“They took some things away from us in that second half that they didn’t in the first, and we kept moving the ball and they created a lot of turnovers ... then that MVP guy there, he’s pretty good.”

That MVP guy got going because he got a steady diet of transition opportunities, and once he pops he can’t be stopped.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BC has played SOME game! ? <a href="https://t.co/OGSKhO5lWf">pic.twitter.com/OGSKhO5lWf</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1370996895384883200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


“It was all our defence,” Gleeson said.

“We were behind the eight-ball, we weren’t doing what we were supposed to do, we had no pressure on the ball and they were getting open looks, what we pride ourselves on we took shortcuts and if you don’t play at that level you're going to get beaten at the professional level, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing.

“Our defence really picked up at the start of the third, then we got points from our defence and then got on a toll, then BC said don’t sub me out and I said I'm not, keep going.”

It wasn’t just their defence though, the Wildcats dominated all the effort areas after half-time, winning the possession game by a staggering +14 in the final 20 minutes.

“We've just got to be able to put 40 minutes together,” new import Brandon Paul said.

“We knew they were going to come out like the champs and they did. We've got to be able to sustain that punch and just compete and at the end of the day they pounded us on the boards, they wanted it more.”



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ohhh that was pretty from Milestone Man, Clint Steindl! ? <a href="https://t.co/dT74MgnJh0">pic.twitter.com/dT74MgnJh0</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1370991882113753089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


The 36ers showed plenty of promise in the overtime loss to SE Melbourne, but the same issue arose as the Phoenix caromed 7 o-boards in the final 12 minutes of regulation, which they turned into 14 second chance points to force the extra period.
 
The Sixers still lead by seven with 90 seconds to play though, their capitulation continuing a worrying trend of poor first quarters and late possession-game woes for the 36ers.

“We've talked about it, our starts and our finishes,” Henry said.

“It’s tough when there’s 15 offensive rebounds, and you’ve only got 10 turnovers going into the fourth and you turn it over seven times, I think it was four in the first six possessions to really give them a lot of life.”

If they can’t fix the rebounding concerns before Humphries returns, the Sixers certainly need to up their offensive execution so they can post winning scores, and one promising sign was the unleashing of Paul in Saturday’s final quarter and overtime.

“We just did a better job of getting him the ball in pretty good space to operate and he makes shots, that’s what he can do for us,” Henry said.

“We've still got to find the balance on our offence right now. We’re not executing at a high level, we’re down with Ice out but there is plenty (of talent) on the team to execute better, and we've just got to keep working at it.”

Henry knows they need to work quickly, however.

“Each loss really hurts, the boys are hurting, we keep getting close, and we've got to heel up and head out west,” he said.