‘Two teams throwing heavy blows’: Phoenix brace for Wild battle

All the talking will be put to bed as South East Melbourne and Perth finally lock horns in Wednesday’s NBL26 Seeding Qualifier.

The third-placed Phoenix, who head into the fixture having lost their past two matches to the Wildcats, know a physical battle awaits them at John Cain Arena.

During Wednesday’s episode of NBL Now, Phoenix coach Josh King outlined why his team are embracing this post-season challenge.

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“I expect a physical matchup and a physical Playoffs as a whole. With that being said, it's got to be allowed to be able to be played that way,” King said on NBL Now.

“Perth is a physical team, they have one of the best defences in the league.

“We like to play physical, so I expect it to be a matchup where it's two teams throwing slingers the whole game, just throwing heavy blows.

“We got two cracks at it, but we're not focused on the second one.

“We're going to throw all our eggs in this basket and try to get this one done, because you don't ultimately want to play in that next game if you don't have to.

“We just have to put 40 minutes of concentrated basketball together if we want to get the win.”

As much as King is harping on the defensive side of the ball, he wants his team’s pace, which ranks second in the league, to continue to be fast and put the Wildcats constantly under pressure.

“We want to continue to be firing away on offence, we're not going to change a whole lot,” King said.

“All the teams I've coached in the last couple years have played this way. We play fast.

“If you look at my prior teams, we take a lot of threes. We get a lot of offensive rebounds. We want to play with pace. Give guys freedom to take the first open shot they get as long as it's a good one.

“We want to take shots in the first seven, eight seconds of the shot clock, beause a lot of times that's the best shot you're going to get before the defence gets set.”

After finishing with their franchise’s best-ever regular season record, King’s side have the opportunity to host the Finals match at John Cain Arena, a venue the Wildcats have lost on seven straight occasions.

“Its going be fun to play in front of our home crowd tonight, but we can't rely on them,” he said.

“I always tell the guys before the game, we have to give them energy so they can give us energy back.

“We can't wait for them to give us energys, so it'll be fun.”

Wednesday’s Seeding Qualifier tips off at 7.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.