For the first time this season, all the Taipans players are medically cleared (although I would guess a couple of them will be on minutes restriction).

I think they can. Perth to win at home.

I believe cats will be too strong for the youthful snakes. Who stops Cotton, McCall to many turn overs, can't see anything but cats by 12-15 point margin.

Kuol has a good history against Cotton, but I thought the same about Le'Afa last week.

Taipans don't have enough shooting IMO. Doubt Miller will be at his best fresh off injury.

Not sure how Waardenburg will hold up against Pinder

I'm tipping Cats but would not be surprised if Cairns take it.

Kuol is one of the best Cotton defenders in the league.

Kuol defence is very physical, I'm not certain he will be given the latitude to do it.

Kuol could have been called for about 5 fouls already and we're two mins in

Is Corey Webster injured or just being denied any minutes?

Where is Henshall latelt?? Insanity

Cairns players complaining about every call yet Kuol should be arrested on court for aggravated assault on Bryce Cotton.

Mayberry team of refs clearly the best, they let he game flow a bit. Cats looking to strong even though scores are close. Miller should play the main point guard, Armstrong not there yet. Really like Sarr, Cotton is a champion.

This game is a basketball purists nightmare.

Pinder, Webster, Usher & McCall. Some of the lowest IQ players you'll ever see at the professional level.

Wagstaff with the best flop no wonder forde is angry

What a conundrum: Wagstaff vs McCall flop off

Cats doing enough to keep their noses in front, hard physical game. Agree re the low iq players. Usher, I just don't see it.

The fact that Cairns are sticking around while looking like absolute shite is a miracle.

Also not sure Cairns can stick with a 4 guard starting 5 going forward with none of those 4 guys being 3pt shooters.

One of those 4 guards*

Nothing really changes at Perth, Cotton is the one that this team needs or they are nothing, Cotton is also a much better defender than given credit for. Sarr, Harris, Doolittle, Wagstaff are very useful pieces around him.
Cairns back to very average and can't see them in finals.

Cairns can defend - I still like them once they sort out their offence.

Only concerns are if they have enough shooting - and Josh Roberts. He's been a bit forgotten about, but why is an import getting a DNP-CD??

Wagstaff proves his value yet again

Didn't watch the game but glad to hear Flopstaff is alive and well.

Why aret the cats playing Pinder like a skrub

Maybe I'm a one-eyed Wildcats supporter but McCall was worse for me.

Would rather put up with the Wagstaff type flops of just falling over, rather than McCall who throws himself around as if he's been shot in the leg every single drive.

Rillie's offence is disgusting, so so stagnant. The amount of cuts through the key way could be counted on one hand. Even rolls off of high screens are barely noticeable and not getting players into scoring positions. The few times there was a pure off ball cut, it led to some easy buckets for Sarr.

Even if Rillie is committed to his offence of getting players into position to play one on one from the perimeter, a bit more off ball movement could let players not have four odd ball defenders staring at their every move.

Dear social media experts

Should we sack everyone at the Wildcats? Rillie, Hutchy and Mills etc despite only a handful of games?

If I'm Pinder I'm asking Adam forde if he has a spare seat on the flight back to cairns

Yeah Pinder nearly invisible in this Cats offense. Rillie deserves some kudos for shaking up the rotation but it's still the Cotton show offensively and Pinder is being criminally underused.

Doolittle on the other hand looks like the perfect glue guy - in the mould of import glue guy wings United have had over the years.

Even the guy who is the Biz partner with Paul Smith was commenting about it on twitter



Cats are WAY to cotton reliant STILL and rillie doesn't know how to feature a 2 X MIP player into his offense

Is reason enough to see why they won't go far this szn

The fact Tai Webster and Jordan usher ,hyrun Harris had more touches on offense then PInder is criminal

But once again is a indictment on rillies shortcomings as a coach

Still waiting for pinder pick n roll action

Pinder averaged 16.9 shots per 40 minutes in Cairns last season, and is averaging 16.9 shots per 40 minutes in Perth so far. Didn't see much of it tonight though.

Great stat Anonymightymouse

Even Gleeson ran everything through Cotton, Perth are winning and still complaining, maybe just release Cotton and see how good you are. As Anoymightymouse said he's getting his shots just not making them. Ask every coach to choose between Pinder and Cotton and see how that works out for Pinder, not good.

Not even close

Lol

Keanu Pinder season comparison
NBL24 (Perth): 15.5p/6.9r/1.9a/1.8s/0.3b/51 FG%/10.8 FGA/53 3P%/1.5 3PA/25 mins
NBL23

(Cairns): 20.6p/11.2r/2.7a/1.6s/0.7b/49 FG%/15.4 FGA/20 3P%/1.8 3PA/34 mins

He is actually doing More with less touches and less playing time

No one said he should he the option before Bryce
.

But there is no reason for him to be used like a a second rate player and get less touches on the offense end ,behind Tai , Dolittle and Harris

Someone needs to pull up a stat on how many times Bryce has passed to Pinder out of PNR action this year

The stats would be horrific to look at

We aren't playing good bball

This Bryce chuckin until U find a ryhtm bball isn't winning basketball

When the schedule gets tougher , and Bryce can't hit thw side of a backboard ,because we are playing better competition and he has no legs by mid season , will prove it .

You will see how rillies inability to run true sets and integrate other players into the offense , has hurt this squad

Bookmark it

Cats look better when Sarr is at the five, than Pinder.

Pinder's averaging 24.5 points per 40 minutes this season, compared with 23.1 points per 40 minutes last season. He's also shooting at a (slightly) higher percentage than last season, turning the ball over less and getting more free throws per minute.

His statline from last year was 16.9p/9.3r/2.4a/1.3s/0.7b/50 FG%/12.4 FGA/21 3P%/1.5 3PA/29 mins

Which feeds my point they aren't maximizing there return from another offensive weapon

I don't think I've ever seen Bryce play more selfish then this season

And once again can anyone tell me how many passes Bryce is getting to Pinder per game ?? I know I'm not the only one who can see it

It's just more that he's on the court a little bit less than last season, approx 4 mins per game.

Dunkman, Gleeson may have run everything through Bryce but he had a game plan for if Bryce was being doubled or tripled out, where it was next man up.

This allowed Bryce to use his passing game to great effect and players like Terrico White, Casey Prather, Todd Blanchfield, John Mooney and Nick Kay to play a foil to him. Gleeson also had players like Mitch Norton, Kevin White, Jesse Wagstaff and Greg Hire locked in and playing their roles. Luke Travers has not developed further since Gleeson's last season.

In his 2 seasons so far Rillie has tried his game plan and when it hasn't worked he has shortened his bench, cast aside players and resorted to Bryce hero ball. Is it any wonder that Bryce appears to be playing more selfishly? The culture and unity that was built during the Bevo and Gleeson years has been eroded.

Cotton had his second highest assist numbers of his NBL career last season and Perth's offence was ranked number 1 in the league (as well as number 1 for assist %).

Rillie knows how to coach offensively, that's not his weakness. In both seasons they've struggled to score early as the group gels, and then have found solutions.

Cotton passing is no different from previous seasons, his passes to Sarr a few games back won you the game, as I said ask every coach who they would take out of Cotton and Pinder and it ain't Pinder.
Cats start winning and there supporters still whining,

It isn't Cotton versus Pinder that I am discussing. It is John Rillie's coaching ability and game plan.

Bryce had a slow start to the season, I don't believe that he just suddenly lost his ability overnight. I am more inclined to believe Rillie struggled to put the right complementary pieces and game plan in place to utilise him.

In fact Rachel Cotton called Rillie out publicly for that and immediately he resorts to benching guys and Bryce goes on a tear. That is great as that is always "Plan A" when you have someone of Bryce's calibre. What we are acknowledging is that is not sustainable for a whole season. Bryce is going to have a down patch, he always does. Rillie has shown no sign of having a Plan B, C, D etc that works.

He let heart and soul vice captain Mitch Norton rot on the bench last season until he was forced to use him and then suddenly realised he could still bring the hustle. By that time it was too late.

This season you have 3 players that Rillie seems to have put a line through before the season had even started (Henshall, Okwera, Zunic), then he has now put a line through Corey Webster. So of a squad of 12 he plans to use 8 for the rest of the season with spot minutes from 1 of the development players rather than 4 full contract players.

Last season he had the excuse that he inherited a squad, he built this years squad and seems to have discarded half of them a third of the way through the season.

History suggests those players will not be given an opportunity to earn court time no matter what they do from now on.

Henshall has to wonder if he made the right decision signing with Perth and Okwera has to wonder if he should have stuck with MU.

So your team is losing, everyone west of the Nullarbor is demanding changes. Changes are made, team wins 4 in a row and your even less happy??

I don't know if this serious or crazy trolling.

What's up with Roberts? Another DNP coaches decision. Budget import but still why bring in if not going to play at all.

Other than united and kings most squads should only play eight, the depth is just not there. Even Vickerman only uses very short rotations for some players, Newley hasn't seen the court in most games.

Goodness me give it a break from criticising Rillie for a while

People criticising his decisions to shorten the rotation, yet that's what saved their season last year and has won them 4 in a row now.

Which bigs is Okwera getting minutes ahead of? Hyrum Harris, Wagstaff, Doolittle, Sarr, Pinder all well ahead of him.

People here have said more minutes for wagstaff, more for hyrum (who's still not actually playing loads despite starting), more for Sarr, more for Pinder. It's not possible. There's only so many minutes to go around.

Give me a break.

I agree that there are players worthy of more minutes but no enough minutes available.

That's a separate issue & discussion from why the Wildcats are playing a poor standard of basketball atm.
S1L3NC3R83's points about our offence and its effects on Bryce are bang on the money IMO. Bryce is not a selfish player. Some of his best and most destructive work used to come from opponents deciding it would be wise to double team him.
It was not wise. He picked teams apart clinically.
Today though, very different story.

Good time for us to play a better team after getting 4 in a row that were playing bad basketball and/or had roster health issues.
I'm not buying that we're "back"
There are some better signs, but still plenty of bad ones.

"In fact Rachel Cotton called Rillie out publicly for that and immediately he resorts to benching guys and Bryce goes on a tear."

This is silly. Perth had some issues early last season with a new roster, made adjustments and became the best offensive team in the NBL. They've had some growing pains early this season too, made some adjustments and are starting to head in the right direction.

A frustrated player's wife doesn't enter the equation. If you know anything about her husband, he would have been working with his team and coaching staff to make the adjustments needed like they did last season.

So your team is losing, everyone west of the Nullarbor is demanding changes. Changes are made, team wins 4 in a row and your even less happy??

I don't know if this serious or crazy trolling.