Cats by 9

Cats by 3

Cats by 93

Prathers arrives tonight.

35 points.

Cats win by 5.

Cats by 12.

Anon, Prather has been confirmed to play :)

Only Perth can make me cheer for Melbourne..............

Since he finally got a haircut, Knight reminds me of Andy Lee.

Perth defence is much better this quarter.

Beal in full flight is a great player

Beal outscored United 18-12 in that quarter

Beal what can you say

Beal-Prather best import combo in the league now?

The Breakers tandom is pretty damn good to.

Well this season is getting boring real quick. It's starting to look like only Illawarra will stand a chance of challenging Perth and NZ. So much for this exciting even season

Perth's 3rd quarters this season have been horrid so the United must make their move now.

Beal wow

Holy. ...I'll have what Beal's having.

DOLLA DOLLA BEAL ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hate me some Perth Wildcats but LOVE ME some Jermaine Beal!

Beal is on another planet

When he is on he and Webster are the best two scorers in the league.....

Wow the 6ers need to throw the kitchen sink at him this offseason.

Oh hey look, that Warrick guy with NBA experience might be able to generate some offense.

Knight was overdue for another serious injury. SMH

That missed dunk and fall just about sums up Blanchfield's season since game 1.

Key stat illustrating the difference between these teams tonight

Assists 15 to 5

Hope Blanchfields ok...

Beal had 18 points in the 1st half in the breakers game in nz finished with 23 anon.

Holt had 23 in first half against Sydney and finished with.... 23.

But I'm pretty sure that 1 and a half quarters from Beal is the best quarter and a half anyone a produced this season

Perth has the most rod wins this season but don't let the facts get in the way of a an agenda

@570303 you watch any test cricket? Nobody wins away from home.

This team or this game reminds of the Cats 2014 championship team. Two good imports and a explosive offence and defensive team.

Record breaker. TEN three pointers.

If it weren't for kicker perth would be up by 40 plus

if it weren't for Beal they'd be behind!

Importantly Perth's bigs got rest before tough road trip and Martin got valuable match time (and still looks like he could win DPOY)

Well done Gleeson and team

Wow, haven't seen a "flag favourite" team get their ass kicked like that in a while.
Cats lost Knight, ran the bench, brought in the DPs, went looking for Beal and then Hire, and still managed 34 points in that final quarter.

Really poor defensive effort from MU, they could rue that if they're trying to claw back the split later on.

Goulding clearly has the skill to be one of the best players in the league. Maybe he should just concentrate on playing, instead of constantly looking for a foul.
Seriously, what sort of twat flops AFTER he's already received the call?

Guess the conspiracy theory about MU being gifted the title was blown out of the water this past few weeks, what a fall from grace of late. Never in it tonight.

Perth's Import pairing is pretty handy at the minute. Then you have a loaded bench where you can bring guys like Redhage(still playing at a good level even in limited minutes) Jervis(starting calibare C)Wagstaff(could start on a lot of teams) and Kenny whom has proven to be a very handy player this season.

Not even going to mention the frontline pairing of Knight and Jawai and the best defensive player the league has ever seen in Damo.

Beal getting buckets

Damo had a down defensive season by his standards last year but it doesn't look like he'll repeat that dose!

Damo is back to his awesome best. I don't think it is a coincidence since he has back in the starting lineup again Perth's average wining margin is 25 in the games against Adelaide and the United?

Perth is averaging 101 points to 76 against with Damo as a starter. Having him back also allows Beal to get back to what he does best and that is to look to score. With Damo he(Beal) had to do the bulk of the playmaking along with the scoring.

Dazz FYI New Zealand were installed as favourites earlier this week.

Just thinking of my OP. Stopping Beal was one of my keys. Oops. Didn't go so well....

Holy Hell that was good. Was so buzzing after the game

What a shooting display, i can only think of a couple of other players i've seen in NBL capable of that type of shooting, one was commentating the game Heal and Andrew Gaze. You'd be surprised if Beal did that again,although he has shown glimpses this year. Recent game in NZ he started to heat up in the 2nd. Last night was one of those nights for him where everything went right for the whole game.

So glad I was there to see that.

Also how absurd is it to have 40pts 7a, but no turnovers?

And props to Kickert as well, he had a massive shooting night, 5/6 from 3pt range.

For a little fun, there was a point mid-way through the game where the passed the ball to Hadziomerovic and prepared to let him run the play, which left Damo on him for the first time that I could recall that night. I straight away thought "You can't leave that kid with Damo, he'll get eaten alive". Damo made the steal about half a second later.

What was so amazing was how he just rolled with it. Was feeling hot so just kept shooting no matter where he was on the court, then just seemed to feed off the crowd and get more and more brazen. Awesome stuff.

Apparently he hit eight threes in a seven minute stretch and outscored Melbourne by himself!

" i can only think of a couple of other players i've seen in NBL capable of that type of shooting"

Beal shot 10/19 3 pointers last night. The past 2 seasons with Perth he's had 3 games where he's taken more than 10 3-pt shots in a game - 8/15 vs NZ in Dec 2013; 6/11 vs Topwnsville in Nov 2014 and 2/11 vs Cairns in Feb 2015.

Historically John Rillie, Phil Smyth, Paul Stanley, Darryl Pearce, Andrew Parkinson, Shane Heal, Michael Johnson and Ian Davies are some who immediately come to mind as producing those sorts of performances on multiple occasions. Maybe Lanard Copeland, Stephen Black, Simon Kerle, Ron Radliff, David Graham and Greg Hubbard - not so certain about them? These players though did so mostly when the 3-pt line was closer to the basket.

Of current players, Goulding (9/14 vs Sydney in Mar 2014), Penney (8/11 vs Cairns in Sep 2009, 9/15 vs Adelaide Jan 2010) and Forman (8/12 vs Sydney in March 2014, 7/7 vs NZ in Feb 2012) have had similarly good 3 point shooting games in the past few seasons.

I'm more talking about where he was taking them from, not No's PeterJohn.

Yeah some of those shots - especially a couple in the 3rd quarter - were from crazy range.
Was fitting that Hammer was on commentary duties for that performance.

Yeah, one that was on my side of the court, he got the ball waaay out from the line after someone fumbled a pass and he just paused a moment and you could see him just think, "Why the eff not?"

Made it. They were stupendous shots.

What a great first game at the Arena for me..

Haven't been to a game since the 90's.

Crowd was crazy.

That was an amazing game by Perth. Beal is scary when his confidence gets going and he knocks a couple of shots down. One of the greatest shooting displays of recent times.

Beal is the perfect second import when you have a player of Ennis or Prather calibre alongside him. Last year he really struggled because Daniels was a crab and didn't draw any attention. Teams were just shutting him down. This year Perth have way too many options for that. It will be interesting to see how he goes in the next few games after a game like that.

My favourite one was where he came over on help and picked Goulding's pocket, raced to a spot somewhere within a metre or two of the arc and just popped it. Was never going to miss.

Also to note....7 assists is crazy for a player that dropped 40 points. Dream team points are looking great for that game, if only i Captained him :P

"Last year he really struggled because Daniels was a crab and didn't draw any attention."

Exactly. People were saying that Perth needed to fix their shooting woes by bringing in a shooter. No, they needed to bring in a guy who could get to the basket to open up the court for their shooters. Thats what they did.

Snaring Jawai at the last minute helped too...

@Train,

40 pts, 7 assists and *NO turnovers* is nuts.

So many weapons, still waiting for Jawai to have a monster game, but i feel foul trouble / lack of good post game / stamina is an issue..

Refs seem to ref him so badly..

Fair enough Vic Wildcat - I apologise

Some good news, Matt Knight's injury not serious.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/12/11/melbourne-utd-coach-hurt-heavy-loss

When did the 3 point line Get moved? What were the old dimensions vs New?

Knight went through training today and is ok.

When did the 3 point line Get moved? What were the old dimensions vs New?

In terms of excelling in his targeted role, Prather is (apparently) exactly what the Cats wanted, and it shows. He's the perfect partner for Beal.
Unlike DD, he's a genuine 3-point threat, so we no longer have Beal as the only outside option.
(Plus as has been mentioned, Jawai is creating space for everyone.)
DD was a fair bit taller, and a more certain option going for the dunk, but Prather is more than ok. He's never gonna post-up, but DD was weak in that area. Where Prather is streets ahead is in his defence and his ability to run the floor and handle the ball.

Is that you again Mrs Beveridge?