R21 Preview: Perth Wildcats vs Melbourne United

Friday, June 4, 2021

Is this the grand final preview? With Bryce Cotton sidelined who knows? But one thing is for sure, it's on like Donkey Kong whenever Perth and Melbourne meet.

When: 9.30pm (AEST), Friday 4 June

Where: RAC Arena, Perth

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

The last time
Melbourne 85 (Goulding 26, Landale 19, McCarron 14) d Perth 89 (Cotton 24, Mooney 24, Norton 12), Round 18, RAC Arena

The Chris Goulding show came to Perth in Round 18, and early on he found a willing Robin in Mitch McCarron. After the Wildcats scored the opening two baskets, that pair nailed Melbourne’s first 16 points, including four trifectas, then Yudai Baba and Jock Landale joined the three-point party and the visitors led by 15 after six incredible minutes. Perth grinded their way back and tied the scores late in the second term, but United kept the Cats at arm’s length after that as they always had the answers from long range.

The now
While Perth can still claim top spot by defeating Melbourne and having Adelaide do the same on Sunday, their chances were all-but extinguished when they fell to the Hawks in a ‘thriller in the Illa’. While a win over their potential grand final opponent would undoubtedly be an enormous boost, and the Cats will play as hard as always, how many of their post-Cotton tricks will Trevor Gleeson reveal to United given ladder positions are likely locked?

For Melbourne, this is an opportunity to inflict some psychological wounds on a rival trying to find a title-winning identity without the MVP. They also need to consolidate some quality form themselves, having gone 5-3 over the past month and not receiving any real test from Cairns in their most recent game on Monday. Two nights prior in Sydney they failed dismally in the possession game, something they can ill-afford in Perth nor in the post-season.

The stats

- Melbourne had 13 more turnovers than the Kings in Round 20, and were outscored 23-9 on points from turnovers. In two defeats to Perth they have lost that stat 46-22

- In two wins over the Wildcats, United have converted at 59 per cent from two-point range. In two losses that number has shrunk to 50 per cent

- In the teams’ last meeting, Perth scored 50 points from two-point range at 58 per cent, with Bryce hitting 9-of-14. In their previous three clashes the Cats managed just 35.5 from twos at 44 per cent

- Cotton has averaged 23.3ppg and 6.5apg against Melbourne this season, shooting 24-of-26 from the free-throw line

The key men

Chris Goulding – With Cotton sidelined, can any player in the NBL turn a game more quickly than Goulding? The answer is probably no. Bubbles has popped three or more triples in five of his past seven games, and when he makes a treble of treys Melbourne have won 12 of their past 13 games. He hit 6 trifectas en route to 26 points in United’s Round 18 win, so it’s now on Mitch Norton and Co to find a way to run Melbourne’s barometer off the arc.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">CG cooking early in RAC ? <br>He's just got three of these in a row ? <a href="https://t.co/eSODkzjpWo">pic.twitter.com/eSODkzjpWo</a></p>— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ/status/1392807530498199553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 13, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

John Mooney – There have been signs of slippage in Mooney’s past two games without Cotton. His conversion has dropped from 56 per cent to 47 per cent, he has gone from 3.7 free-throw attempts to 1, and his assists have halved from 3 to 1.5. His past two meetings with Melbourne have delivered 54 points at 61 per cent, 28 boards, 8 assists and 11-of-14 from the foul line, and Perth needs another monster game against Jock Landale and Co.

The quotes

While their recent run of form hasn’t been brilliant, Melbourne are building for the finals, and they feel after a season of mostly being home-bodies, their Round 18 trip to the wild west was a key stepping stone.

“You’ve got to have a mental toughness to win over here with the crowd, the guys yelling at you behind the bench. The crowd is energetic to Perth and it allows them to go onto runs,” coach Dean Vickerman said.

“They went on a few little runs tonight, mostly at the rim, I thought we guarded the three-point line fairly well, managing those runs and not getting too up and down – what’s the next play, how do you move on?

“We had a lot of guys in foul trouble at half-time, three of our bigs were on three fouls and we trusted Jock to come out and play with foul trouble and he was great, he ends up playing the whole fourth quarter.

“Some of those things we take away and say we learn a bit about ourselves.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr">??????????? <a href="https://t.co/JGlBZUerbS">pic.twitter.com/JGlBZUerbS</a></p>— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ/status/1392833487837663233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 13, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

It was an incredible all-around display of offensive basketball rarely seen from visiting teams at RAC Arena – shooting 47 per cent from the field, getting to the foul line 20 times, dishing 22 dimes to 12 turnovers and winning second chance points.

“Some keys for this one were taking care of the basketball and we were loose and sloppy with it last time we played them,” Vickerman said.

“Having four turnovers in the second half, doing a solid job on the boards and then having foul discipline – I think the second quarter was the only one, they shot 10 free throws in that second quarter – but other than that I thought we were pretty foul disciplined.

“We didn’t overreact to situations as well and kept our heads which was really good.”

And they shot the lights out, nailing 15 treys, with Chris Goulding, Dave Barlow, Mitch McCarron, Scotty Hopson and Yudai Baba combining for 13 at 48 per cent.

“We shot the basketball pretty well, we still had a lot of looks, 37 three balls from us is certainly on the high end but I thought not too many of them were poor looks – making 15 threes is pretty huge,” Vickerman said.

“That’s the way we've played all year, we've continued to trust the group. It wasn’t a game that I wanted to tighten rotations, I wanted to make sure people were playing the minutes they’ve been playing all year and trusting a lot of people.

“I think the energy we were able to generate and the trust in a lot of people making shots becomes pretty hard to defend.”

Perth is still figuring out what makes them hard to defend without Bryce Cotton. While they are 2-1 with their superstar sidelined, they’ve shot the ball at just 40 per cent and went 1-of-4 in the final minute in Wollongong.

“I'm extremely proud of how we’re playing, we’re still navigating without Bryce,” coach Gleeson said.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jesse drops three in his 381st game! <a href="https://t.co/yVOyiZvAji">pic.twitter.com/yVOyiZvAji</a></p>— Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1399682377035616261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 1, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“In a crunch situation like that we've always given the ball to Bryce and he gets double-teamed and finds the open player – we've got to navigate without that.

“Just our effort and intensity was great, and that’s something that’s going to hold us in good stead going into the playoffs.”

The Perth supercoach isn’t too fussed about top spot looking out of reach, he simply wants his team to keep building the trademarks that will help them win a semi-final series.

“It’s out of our control, we don’t worry about anything we can’t control so what we’ll do is build on that, build on the intensity, build on our execution, build on our taking care of the ball,” he said.

“Same as we always do, we’ll worry about ourselves and everything else is insignificant.”

For coach Vickerman, it’s about Melbourne executing offensively, and taking care of the ball and the boards so the less potent Cats offence gets left in their dust.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">S<br>W<br>I<br>S <br>H <a href="https://t.co/44dUjxy2YU">pic.twitter.com/44dUjxy2YU</a></p>— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ/status/1392822425037930499?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 13, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“They've shown how good they are defensively all year and I don’t think that changes who they are at all, I think they're still going to be one of the top two defensive teams in the league,” he said after his team blew Cairns off the court.

“You just see Mitch Norton and Steindl and Blanchfield just carrying a bit more load offensively but they haven't quite gone to the 85-95 (points) without Bryce, so our offence is going to have to tick because we know they're going to be really solid defensively.

“If the ball pops like it did tonight and the last time we were over there, I think we made 15 or 16 threes, something similar to what we did tonight.

“Our ball movement, if it’s that good and we create great opportunities we give ourselves a good chance.”