tough night for the Hawks. Wildcats should be pumped with Knight back and Ingram on the team.

Hard to see the Hawks pull an upset

Maybe only Adelaide has swung as dramatically between excellent and woeful as the Hawks the first couple of weeks of the season. Either team could take this, but I'll go with Wildcats at home.

If Hawks catch fire, they can get this.

Prather is a tough matchup for the Hawks though.

Hawks by 2.

I am loving the season so far, every game is so unpredictable and the crowds are really getting into the league, great stuff.

Although I do tend to favour upsets and underdogs, why not when we have so many, I think the Wildcats by 6 points at home!

Can't wait to get a GOOD geek at Ingram

need the split this weekend, need to win tonight.

I am actually excited to see AI in action.
Not since Lisch have we had a reliable knock-down 3-point shooter, so I'm HOPING he can rain bombs all night.

Not expecting him to gel instantly with the team or the plays, but if he can catch and shoot at 40%+ that should be something to behold.
I just hope Gleeson gives him the green-light to fire at will.

LOL at the idea of Gleeson not giving him the green light to shoot

Would like to see a lineup of:

Brandt
Wagstaff
Prather
Ingram
Kenny

For a few mins.

All can hit from range

Another NBL jersey nightmare. At least one time should be wearing white.

team*

Ingram 100% from 3!

...Ingram 50% from 3.

Harris not seeing enough of the ball this half for the Hawks.

Kernich-Drew giving all us armchair hoopers hope with their NBL careers as another 3 bricks off the hoop.

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Yeah McKay has been a nice find... especially with Knight back, the frontcourt looks a lot more balanced.

Lel

Gleeson can gob my hog.

Wagstaff is dirty af

3 point game with 6 minutes to go

Me right now: "Harris back off him, back off him, he's not going to shoot the 3, back o... oh, good steal!"

..and Ingram just cemented his roster spot on that 3.

No one cares what you're doing

New import has been handy..

Or maybe not.

Oh hey it's McQuade troll, aka the All Caps Anon! Welcome to the thread!

Safe to say Ingram has no conscience whatsoever.
Love it!

Good win for Perth, but the Hawks really look out of sorts to me on offense. Playing well below their talent.

The Hawks' fourth import kevin white is impressive

Because he's old.
But I think he has found his niche, as a close-out specialist. Very dependable when the pressure is on.

Otherwise he is basically depth in case one of the other forwards gets in foul trouble.

Happy to see us grind out another win. As long as we can keep winning at home, its a good season.
Beyond that, I suppose the positive is that there is still some upside in the team. McKay fumbled several times, completely mis-timed a couple of ally-oops, and yet still came up with 14 points, 8 boards, and FOUR blocks, whilst only conceding 1 foul. If he can continue to improve as he settles in and gets accustomed to the reffing, then he could be a great find.

Knight remains one of the best "in the paint" players in the league, but you can also understand why the Cats went for a more athletic partner.

Can't complain about the new dude. Looked good on the court, reasonable D, and can handle the ball. Then hit 3 nice 3's. Not bad for a guy just off the plane.
Once he gets used to the "defensive pressure" (aka "mugging") of the NBL, he'll be even better.

Kenny just seems to get better every game. Why did it tale so long for the NBL to find him?

My primary concern about Cats from that game, is that despite him not having a great night, they were still unable to contain AJ. It will be interesting to see how they go against some of the other big centres.

That, and the rest of the team really needs to work on their 3-point shooting.

Perth may be 3-1 and Illawarra 1-3 but I like Illawarras prospects more.

Perth still haven't managed to score 80 in 40 minutes, even against a team who pressures and pushes up the pace of the game. They beat an under done Cairns, won a nail biter vs NZ and now won a close one vs the Hawks, who were missing their biggest weapon.

Hawks have lost to the two most talented teams heading into tonight's game, after destroying an Adelaide group who have since won 3 of 4. Hawks are a bit more physical than previously, can apply full court pressure and no shortage of options. Bevo the master will be back.

Perth plays a physical style, gets calls and rides the crowd at Perth Arena, but I don't see them winning many away games this year. They don't have the scoring ability to get a big lead and silence opposing crowds.

Oops- turned it off early. Perth did get 80 points, just. Still, point is, it's not an achievement vs Illawarra.

Casey Prather is so damn impressive. Really hope he's ok.

Kernich-Drew makes me miss Drew Williamson.

So the Hawks, who played one decent game before turning to complete shit and have literally no upside, have better prospects than Perth???

Oops- turned it off early. Perth did get 80 points, just. Still, point is, it's not an achievement vs Illawarra.

Perth plays a physical style, gets calls and rides the crowd at Perth Arena, but I don't see them winning many away games this year.

You were going OK until that last one, because Dolla was the shotmaker on that team too. Ennis was more of a finisher.

So, Illawarra are better than Perth, because Illawarra are so shit that beating them is easy?

Dazz, thinking objectively is clearly not your specialty, is it?

Hawks haven't turned to shit lol, they've lost very close games to Sydney, and now Perth. Hawks have had one particularly bad game out of 4.

You do realise the Hawks were missing Rob Beveridge and Mitch Norton last night, and Perth stitched up the result in the final seconds? Let's see what happens when they meet in Wollongong.

Perth had been missing Knight. Who is a key part of their structure (until last night) but Perth has been quite fortunate thus far, in that they continual scrape through and just get over the finish line against undermanned opponents missing key pieces (Bairstow, Jawai + Weigh missing and Wortho and Trice first game back, Bevo and starting PG and best defensive guard Norton, tomorrow Goulding and Barlow).

If my pre season predictions were correct and the top 4 includes Mel/Syd/Perth/Illawarra then The Cats have played 3 games against teams who won't make top 4. They lost one, and won two nail biters.

That's pretty meaningless given it is widely acknowledged anyone can beat anyone this year.

Yeah that's true Paul, but at the end of the day someone has to finish on top. And someone has to finish 2nd. And 3rd.....

And if we do have a very even season- as I agree we will- then the top team will still likely win 18 or 19 games and the bottom team likely 9 or 10. 11 at most. I'm suggesting the teams more likely to get towards the top are Sydney and Melbourne, and Cairns more likely near the bottom, therefore in the context of this discussion, Illawarra have had the tougher run than Perth so far.

(And of course, not to mention the fact that Perth have had 3 home games from 4 total games so far).

I think LV makes some fair points. Not sure why some people get so defensive about a very reasonable observation.
The team will gel assuming we don't fire any more players but I still don't see a lot of high scores in the Cats' future this season. Our half court offence is pretty ordinary. (Thank goodness Matty is back early because he helps a lot in that department)

Hawks haven't turned to shit lol, they've lost very close games to Sydney, and now Perth. Hawks have had one particularly bad game out of 4.

You do realise the Hawks were missing Rob Beveridge

Mitch Norton

and Perth stitched up the result in the final seconds?

Dazz, please try to read what people are saying, before you post.

What I said was that scoring 80 points against the Hawks is not impressive, given the pace that the Hawks play their games at. Keeping the Hawks to 73 points on the other hand, IS impressive- I'll give the Cats that much.

It is early days, but we do have plenty of relevant information on the Cats because they only have two players who are new to NBL, and have made less personnel changes than any other team. I see them winning 14-16 games, which will probably result in a finish somewhere between 3rd and 5th, potentially a semi finalist but not a champion. History says you need good offense and good defense to win championships. They clearly have good D, but their half court offense looks poor- and given the personnel and mix of skill sets, I see it becoming average at best.

So when I said "I like Illawarras prospects more" I think they have more chance of reaching the level necessary to win the title- where all areas of the game are clicking. I wouldn't be surprised if Illawarra won anywhere from 12 games to 18ish. Perth seem a more predictable, more reliable sort of team. You just have confidence that they'll get their share of wins, but I think it's very unlikely that this group that they have right at this moment wins the title.

"What I said was that scoring 80 points against the Hawks is not impressive, given the pace that the Hawks play their games at. "

This would be relevant if the game was played at the pace the Hawks wanted to. Perth controlled the tempo for the majority of the game and you only need to look at past games to see that Perth don't average 90+ points per game.

I saw probably 40% of the game, it seemed as though the Hawks were trying to run their usual offense and certainly at points applying up court pressure like they usually do.

Well done to the Cats for working the Hawks out of their game. But you need varied gears if you want to challenge for the title. You can't be a one trick pony team. Can Perth go on the road, and match it with teams who have more firepower once those teams click into gear offensively? That's my question.

Perth are very lucky they have had so many games at home to start the season. Had they started the season with 4 away games they could very well of been 0-4.
They are far from playing their best ball but I think after another 2-3 games under their belt they are going to be very tough to beat, home or away.

Having said that, most of the other teams in the league are far from playing their best also. Its a good sign that Perth are winning close games though, I guess we will find out in the next few weeks if they can win those games on the road also.

Idiots like dazz really give us Perth supporters a bad name.

I'm surprised the Wildcats didn't include any Ingram threes in their highlights package... especially that dagger at the end?!