FINALS have arrived in NBL25 and they kick off on Tuesday night with the Perth Wildcats hosting the SEM Phoenix. Perth finished the season in third place, one win off of Melbourne United in second. The Wildcats finished the season winning 12 of their last 16 games after sitting eighth five rounds in. 

South East Melbourne began the year 0-5 and were placed bottom of the ladder through six rounds. Since then, they have won 16 of their last 24 games and seven of their last nine more recently. Since losing Derrick Walton Jr, they have seen a resurgence from veteran Nathan Sobey running the point guard position and have gotten increased offensive output from imports Matt Hurt and Joe Wieskamp.

The Phoenix bat deep, often using up to five bench players in their regular rotation. Matt Kenyon, Angus Glover, Ben Ayre and Next Star Malique Lewis have been solid contributors for them off the bench, providing them with bursts of scoring and ball handling. Combine that with effort on the defensive end from Jordan Hunter and breakout player Owen Foxwell (who is relishing plenty of opportunity in Walton’s absence) in their starting lineup and it is evident why they are in the form they are in. 

For Perth, quelling the influence of so many contributors could prove difficult, and will likely rest on the shoulders of its bench rotation, including the likes of Tai Webster, Jesse Wagstaff, Elijah Pepper and Next Star Izan Almansa. Perth has scored triple figures in seven of its last eight games and continues to hum offensively, with Bryce Cotton leading the way. The MVP frontrunner had a career year in the regular season, despite his impressive scoring average of nearly 29 points per game including a game in which he scored zero points in two minutes back in Round Five.

The question for the Phoenix of who will guard Cotton remains unanswered. In the three games the two sides played each other this season that he was involved in, Cotton averaged 29.3 points. In the four total games they played against one another Kristian Doolittle posted over 10 rebounds per game, so keeping him off the glass will be another factor for South Melbourne. Doolittle will likely take the Matt Hurt assignment defensively at first, a big ask with Hurt averaging over 20 points per game this season. He or Sobey had led the side in scoring in 10 straight games until Ben Ayre did so in the final game of the regular season. 

The visitors will have one advantage though, in that Perth will be down about 9000 supporters. The Wildcats are likely going to have to play this game at the Perth High Performance Center, due to a scheduling issue with RAC Arena, which is booked for a Kylie Minogue concert. The Wildcats will be without their usual full Red Army, which could impact the atmosphere and thus, their performance. 

Perth won three of the four battles over the course of the season, and will hope that Cotton can continue his remarkable scoring output on Tuesday, but this matchup is a juicy one, and both sides have everything to play for. Expect a thriller to open the NBL finals series.