Travers, Thomas Spark Wildcats Over 36ers

Photos: Perth Wildcats Media

The combination of Luke Travers and TaShawn Thomas offered a glimpse into how life under John Rillie at the Perth Wildcats will look as they opened up their pre-season with a 98-87 win on Friday night over the Adelaide 36ers.

While Travers and Thomas showed exciting signs for the Wildcats, and then Bryce Cotton sent a reminder that he's going to put himself in MVP running once more, there was a lot for CJ Bruton and the Sixers to like too, especially from gun recruit Antonius Cleveland.

On the back of the off-season of his life where Travers found himself drafted to the NBA by the Cleveland Cavaliers, impress in the Summer League in Las Vegas and then star in his Australian Boomers debut, he put on a show on Friday night at Eaton Recreation Centre.

Travers was spectacular at both ends of the floor and above the rim especially in the first half while Thomas was mighty impressive with his physical presence and finishing around the rim in his first appearance in Wildcats colours.

Wildcats coach John Rillie chats to his team. 

It was a first hit-out of the pre-season for both Perth and Adelaide, as they clashed just outside of Bunbury in the south-west of Western Australia. 

Both teams were missing some stars a week out from the NBL Blitz with the 'Cats missing captain Jesse Wagstaff, import Brady Manek, Corey Shervill, Majok Majok and Jack Andrew while the Sixers were minus Robert Franks and Anthony Drmic.

However, it was a chance for both teams to unveil their new look ahead of NBL23 and also for two of the best winners in NBL history, John Rillie and CJ Bruton, to lock horns as coaches for the first ever time.

While the Wildcats started well to lead by six at quarter-time on the court not far from where Mark Worthington and Cam Gliddon hail from, the 36ers turned it around heading into half-time to take a 48-47 advantage.

However, the Wildcats were able to break the game open during the third quarter with Bryce Cotton catching fire and with Travers and Thomas firing as well, they got out to a 17-point lead at one point before winning 98-87.

Despite Adelaide winning the rebound battle 45 to 32, Perth shot 53 per cent from the floor to 41, while it was a whistle-heavy contest with 58 free-throws taken between the two teams.

A lot of that shooting for the 'Cats was on the back of Luke Travers and TaShawn Thomas who did a lot of their best work around, at and above the rim. 

Travers finished with 16 points and nine rebounds on five-of-eight shooting from the floor and six-of-seven from the free-throw line, with Thomas adding 19 points and four boards on eight-of-11 shooting.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">LT doing plenty. ?‍? <a href="https://t.co/7kLmwtnylV">pic.twitter.com/7kLmwtnylV</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1568229189320601601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Bryce Cotton warmed to the task nicely in the second half to end up top-scoring with 20 points and four assists for Perth, with Mitch Norton adding 12 points and six assists, Todd Blanchfield 10 points and five assists, Corey Webster nine points, and Kyle Zunic eight.

Winning or not wasn’t a huge concern a week out from the pre-season officially starting, it was all about finding good signs and there were plenty of those for Adelaide too especially from Antonius Cleveland. Having made the off-season move from Illawarra, he delivered 23 points and three assists on eight-of-ten shooting.

Daniel Johnson also put up 12 points and three rebounds, Kai Sotto 11 points and 11 rebounds on four-of-five shooting, Sunday Dech eight points and four boards, Nick Marshall eight points and six rebounds, and Craig Randall eight points and four assists despite shooting two-of-17 overall and one-of-13 from deep.

The two teams will do it all again on Sunday afternoon from 1pm at HBF Arena in Joondalup, before they turn their attention to the NBL Blitz starting on Friday in Darwin.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL PRE-SEASON

PERTH WILDCATS 98 (Cotton 20, Thomas 19, Travers 16)
ADELAIDE 36ERS 87 (Cleveland 23, Johnson 12, Sotto 11) 

BOX SCORE

Antonius Cleveland goes up for the dunk.