SATURDAY night saw a cracking matchup take place between the Perth Wildcats and the Illawarra Hawks at WIN Entertainment Centre, in a clash between two of the competition’s top-four sides. While it was shaping up to be a tense contest early in the match, the Wildcats delivered a powerful performance in the final three quarters to blow away their opponents and claim a win with a substantial margin. After a disappointing outing last week that resulted in their second loss of the season, Perth produced one of the strongest individual performances of the 2021/22 season, with the Hawks not able to conjure an answer for the strong play and the Wildcats won 94-78.

Things were not looking great for the Wildcats to start the match, with their opponents bursting out of the gates to grab a substantial lead early on. Perth even trailed by a whopping 10 points at the first break, unable to get their offence rolling in this time. However, they bounced back in the following three quarters, outscoring their opponents 81-55 in this time. There was no doubt that the Wildcats had the offensive power to get themselves back into the contest, so the Hawks simply had to maintain their strong scoring output for the entirety of the match if they wanted to keep their lead.

The Wildcats outperformed their opponents in many of the key statistical categories, including shooting. Despite launching 12 less field goal attempts, Perth actually made two more shots throughout the match. They shot better from inside the three-point line, behind the arc and from the charity stripe. One area they were beaten was the ability to hold onto the ball, conceding seven more turnovers than their opponents. However, they won majority of the crucial areas, which helped deliver them the win.

The side was also well-served by a number of key contributors and strong performances from a number of their players. The duo of Bryce Cotton (24 points) and Victor Law (22 points) was in full swing on Saturday night and this is typically a strong indicator of the likelihood of the Wildcats gaining the win. They were also boosted by the strong outing Todd Blanchfield, who had his best game of the year with 20 points, giving his side a serious level of bench production.