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Perth Wildcats coach John Rillie hopes his team will use Wednesday night’s 27-point NBL Blitz loss to Melbourne United as a reference point for how to play under fatigue throughout the regular season.
Perth lost 90-63 while playing their third game in five days. Melbourne were playing only their second game of the tournament and last competed on Sunday.
The Wildcats started poorly and never recovered. They trailed by 10 points at quarter time, that deficit blew out to 16 points just three minutes into the second quarter and they were 21 points down nearing half-time.
Bryce Cotton didn’t score in the first half after being restricted to only three shots. He finished with eight points.
The Wildcats and Illawarra Hawks were handed the toughest Blitz schedules with both teams playing three games in five days.
Rillie said playing under fatigue is a part of sport.
“There’s going to be some point in our season where we have a schedule like we’ve had up here in Darwin. It’s great for us to go though that,” he said.
“We played the game and we are playing to win. We can look at that as an excuse, but we are professional and that wasn’t a good display.
“You could tell that our energy level was down so that’s where attention to detail needs to be at a higher level.”
TaShawn Thomas and Corey Webster were the only Wildcats in double figures with 10 points each. Majok Majok came off the bench to score eight points and win five rebounds while Corey Shervill took another step in his return from a long term foot injury with seven points.
But Melbourne had too many weapons. Xavier Rathan-Mayes top scored with 22 points, Jordan Caroline won 14 rebounds and Rayjon Tucker finished with 18 points and seven rebounds.
The Wildcats won their first four pre-season games and Rillie said the loss was a valuable lesson ahead of round one against Brisbane.
“The positive is it is the first time we’ve been in a position like that. We’ve been playing well and the scoreboard has been very favourable towards us for most of the minutes we’ve been playing,” he said.
“So for us to look up and see the scoreline not in our favour, how do we approach that and what’s our application to getting to getting it done and fixing it up?”
Rillie said the team got through the loss to United without any injury issues despite several physical clashes throughout the night.
