No excuses for the Wildcats (more generally, any loss at home should be considered unacceptable).

Wildcats by 8, Perth Arena to go off celebrating the return of Matty Knight.

More ominously, I think walk-up ticket sales have been very slow, despite a price drop for the Thursday night game. Will be close to that sub-10k figure.

Both teams welcome back great players, that much they have in common but can't see Cairns getting close in this one. Knight can be eased in for maybe 15 min. Perth by 13.

With knight back, got to think perth's front court is a tad more potent. Cairns imports got to have big games for them but still perth will be 7-0 and with the hawks struggling it could be 8-0 by the end ove the round.

Knight gives us a huge extra piece of flexibility and inside threat. Perfect for putting other teams on the horns of a dilemma: do you defend inside against Ennis and Knight's scoring prowess, or do you defend the arc after that display against Wollongong. Very good line-up for keeping the D honest.

No contest, Perth has Ennis!

Reading the game's preview, I can't help but wonder if Fearne reads my informative postings on this site...proactive defenders vs reactive defenders. It's really good stuff.

Or am I actually Aaron Fearne himself?

"Last time they met: Perth 70 (Wagstaff 13, Carter 12, Redhage 12) d Cairns 53 (Tragardh 13, Grabau 12), Round 23, 2012/13, Perth Arena"

*shudder*

Every team gets up for a game in perth!

Prepare for a blowout! Somethings not right in Cairns.

at the start of every season Fearne tends to over coach,the players can feel how tense he is and it has a reverse effect on them....every year!

This Cairns team needs an identity. They went from being the best defensive team in the league a couple of years ago to one of the worst last year, but their offense never improved enough in the meantime. - despite the addition of some offensive firepower.

Now they have the personnel to play well on both ends but they lack an identity. What is this team? Do they just jack threes as their mandate or is there more to them?

Fearne has some work to do. Can't fault the recruiting.

You're right, it's disappointing. In fairness, with Gliddon at full health we would've taken at least two of the three he sat out and your comment probably wouldn't exist.

The problem started when Crosswhite left. If we had him instead of Trigger, I honestly think we win the championship this year.

Crosswhite was very underrated indeed. a defensive anchor that you dont see that often in the nbl any more. Cairns shouldn't have let him walk.

Rubbish, replacing Trigger with Crosswhite in the end changes almost nothing in terms of the Championship this year. Perth will still be Perth with their lineup and Crosswhite doesn't fix the fact that all our shuffle offense does is run around in circles for 10-15 seconds before we jack up a 3 pointer that will go down 35% of the time, completely negating one of our best offensive threats (yes Trigger). Crosswhite was a very good interior defender sure, but our biggest problem atm is perimeter and transition D and poor decision making on offense. Loughton/Burston/Young should be able to handle the middle but nobody is hounding the guy with the ball like Grabau used to do.

Crosswhite at times was underrated but even during the year the team made the Grand Final he often looked disinterested and unmotivated on the court and most people knew he had one eye on returning to Sydney to be closer to his farm and eventual retirement. I was happy to see him go.

Taipans are playing terribly atm since Gliddon went down, but people tend to forget we essentially switched out half our team from last year if you include Shaun Bruce, all of whom play pretty significant roles now. In saying that time is ticking for Fearne to turn this around quickly and if things don't improve from the Sydney game this is going to be a slaughter.

Northern, I wholeheartedly disagree re: Crosswhite. This team has enough offence, defence is the problem. Defence wins championships. Crosswhite fixes defensive problems simple as that. Our offence has actually changed since last year, you are just remembering the last few games in which we lost without Gliddon. We now play quicker sets with added wrinkles and are a first option team. We haven't displayed that the last few outings but for every preseason and regular season game up until the Gliddon injury, we have.

Although, yes I did see that Crosswhite's head wasn't fully in it. But his production was, and that's all I care about. I want that championship baby.

Also, I want Fearne to just let the offensive boards go and simply bust a gut back down the other end of the floor in order to stop defensive trans. Without looking at the stats, I can pretty much guarantee that we give up more fast break points per game than we get second chance points. It's embarrassing.

In order to stop offensive trans*

Have a second read of what I said, anon^

Let go of crashing the offensive boards so the team can get back on defence and not leak so many transition points.

Is it too late for Cairns to send an SOS to Grabau to play some D??

Yeah, if Cairns let themselves be caught out of position looking for second chance baskets, they will get stung on the counter more often than not. Could quickly become a very bad exchange rate, since getting those O-boards isn't likely to be that easy to begin with.

Personally I'd like to see Knight coming off the bench and getting a thunderous (Thursday crowd) ovation after 3-4 minutes.

To me this should be the grand final review (Melbourne are the only team that could spoil that) so it should be a ripping game but Cairns certainly need an identity and maybe they need some more emotion from their players as Loughton is great when he is fired up but we either don't see it often enough or he sits on this deep bench shortly after.

Wildcats by around 11 points but I expect Cairns to come away feeling better or time to give Fearne and his horrendous voice the flick

Either McCamey is out or is the NBL TV production team up to its old tricks again?

This is disgusting.

Well that's a chalk-it-up-and-move-on win if ever I saw one. Brr. Terrible return from the bye. What the hell happened to Wagstaff's 3pt shot...

McCamey sorta kinda needs to get fired if he doesn't pick up pretty soon.

Close of quarters was definitely terrible. Not happy about letting a double-digit lead slip like that. Was definitely hoping for a better performance. If Burston hadn't choked his free throws we'd have been in a whole world of trouble.

Hopefully that's got them back up to match speed, although I'm now feeling nervous about our next bye...

Taips were okay, but they are simply a headcase. Both teams had lapses in concentration; Cairns' were worse. Cairns made some shots early fourth quarter, Perth made shots late fourth quarter. I honestly think we will get up in Melbourne though. Nothing to back up my theory though, it's just a hunch.

As Gleeson said pregame, Cairns were in his top two before the season started. If they get their heads right, the championship is a definite possibility. Conversely, if they don't get over whatever is weighing them down, they will probably miss the playoffs altogether.

Fun fact: for as good a player and 'leader' Jamar Wilson has been in his NBL career, he hasn't even seen playoffs yet...

Well said statsheet stuffer re: Wilson and the quicker he is used as a spark off the bench the better as he let's the game pass him by too much and needs to come out all fired up like he did against Townsville in the 1st game of the season.

I was at the game and I was highly impressed with Cairns, they are so talented but their kids (young, steindl, Gliddon) made a few errors that a more experienced player wouldn't have made and yet their experienced players weren't demanding enough of the ball in the clutch and to have what 3 players in double figures and none play 3/4 of the game (I was highly impressed with the talent always sitting on the bench for Cairns at any one time) and Loughton was looking good ending the 3/4 and yet say down too long in the 4th...

I went there tonight thinking this was a preview of the grand final and left thinking if found my second favourite team and I can't wait to see Cairns click and I hope it's against them pesky Breakers (whenever they play).

Jervis looked quality and I wonder if anyone would take ANY point guard in the NBL over Damien Martin right now? I have Rotnei in my dream team ahead of him but I think he will be more a 2 when Rhys gets better match fitness.

Wildcats 7-0... Great start and honouring the incredible Alabama Slammer next home game vs. Violet crumbles (Sunday 24 November) so I hope it's a sell out

JC in the house to watch Ennis v Young? Couldnt script it any better!

Jesus Christ?