Wildcats eye Hawks scalp

Perth has defeated all teams to come before them in NBL24, bar one – the Illawarra Hawks.

The Wildcats have the opportunity to not only avoid a season sweep against Justin Tatum’s side, but also strike a brutal blow against Illawarra’s hopes of securing a top four spot and a second chance in the Play-In tournament.

Last time the two sides clashed, Bryce Cotton was marked out of the game by a combination Wani Swaka Lo Buluk and a raft of double teams from Illawarra’s defence, and head coach John Rillie says his side won’t alter its approach too drastically ahead of Thursday’s clash.

“The specific strategy is probably more of an impact on what we feel within our systems and schemes and just go with a heavier dose of that stuff,” Rillie said.

“The gravity and purpose Bryce plays with, our other players really need to capitalise on that and I thought we saw that in the fourth quarter the other night against Cairns.

“There are some similarities in some ways Cairns defends off the ball and the attention they give Bryce, so getting ourselves in those situations more often I think will be advantageous for us.

“What I would say is our style of play, we don’t change much up in game to game and we’re pretty vanilla in what we do on a daily basis. They’ve probably exposed us a little bit in the way they defend us and it’s going to be a great challenge to go on the road and figure out a way to defeat them.

“It’s easy to reflect on the scoreboard, we’re 0-2 against them and they’re the only team we haven’t beaten this year, so that would be a small feather in our cap and milestone to go through a season without being swept by a team.

“The more important thing is us feeling good about ourselves moving towards the Playoffs, if we do have to play them at that stage of the season as well.”

Perth has all but locked away second position with the final round still to play in the season. The Wildcats face a road double-header against the Hawks and JackJumpers, but Rillie says the temptation to play a heavily rotated side doesn’t outweigh his desire to win both games.

“It's easy for us to talk about that today, but once the ball gets thrown up your competitive juices get going,’ he continued.

“Is there an opportunity for us to get guys some minutes and so forth? Yes, but we’re going on the road to win two games.”

The Wildcats’ clash with Illawarra will tip off on Thursday night at 7:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo.