Le'afa Starts It, Adnam Finishes Wildcats for Phoenix

The South East Melbourne Phoenix back court came up huge with Izayah Le'afa brilliant in the first half and Kyle Adnam huge in the second in Saturday night's 86-80 win against the Perth Wildcats.

The Phoenix started well last up at John Cain Arena against the Wildcats but were overwhelmed in the finish losing by 22 and conceding 101 points coming into Saturday's clash with second spot on the NBL table on the line.

It was Izayah Le'afa who had a monstrous first half for the Phoenix not only scoring nine points himself, but remarkably holding three-time MVP Bryce Cotton scoreless on 0/5 shooting.

That helped the Phoenix to a 14-point advantage at half-time but it only took Cotton less than four minutes to cap a Perth 10-0 run early in the third term for him to help the Wildcats back into the contest.

Cotton helped inspire the 'Cats to tie scores up with a minute and-a-half remaining too after he scored a couple of baskets and then found Todd Blanchfield for the corner three. 

But Perth couldn’t find a three down the stretch and it was Phoenix captain Kyle Adnam who closed the door on them with four huge free-throws on the back of a massive three minutes earlier and scoring 16 of his 24 points for the game in the second half.

It was that back court of Adnam along with Le'afa, who finished with 12 points and four assists, who were instrumental in the win.

Meanwhile, Mitch Creek (22 points, four rebounds) had a cracking power forward battle with Vic Law (22 points, nine boards).

Phoenix captain Adnam was delighted to come away with the club's first ever win over Perth at John Cain Arena.

"It was just overall a great overall. Obviously defensively in the first half was something that coming in we knew we had to hang our hats on, and I thought we were great at that end," Adnam said.

"In the second half we missed a few things here and there, but to beat a team like Perth with how they've been rolling it was a big win for us definitely."

It was a third successive loss for the Wildcats with Cotton finishing with 15 points all in the second half to go with five assists. Matt Hodgson had a significant impact with 10 points and seven rebounds despite playing just 16 minutes and Michael Frazier showed better signs with 10 points.

Wildcats coach Scott Morrison was frustrated at the inability for his team to put together 40 minutes of basketball right now.

"The players know what's going on, they know what the results are and that these moral victories of good second halves or coming back from deficits aren’t helping us," Morrison said. 

"We are going to have to collectively as a group, from myself down, do a better job for 40 minutes. We definitely show in spurts that we are as good as any team in the league and then we have spurts where we let the other teams get going. 

"I thought we could have did a better job there for a stretch in the second half when we did get back into the game."

After a quietish couple of games, Vic Law started well with two early buckets for Perth but it didn’t take South East Melbourne long to take the momentum including going on an 11-0 run to lead 18-8 following three balls from Izayah Le'afa, Xavier Munford and Kyle Adnam.

The Phoenix still led 21-15 after one and then three-pointers early in the second from Adnam, Reuben Te Rangi and then Ryan Broekhoff had the home team leading by 12. 

Law hit Perth's last five points of the half for 13 at the break, but Bryce Cotton was scoreless and his nemesis Le'afa went into half-time scoring the last five points and the Phoenix were up 45-31.

Cotton and the Wildcats were always going to hit back in the third quarter and they went on a run of scoring 10 straight points that was capped by Cotton knocking down a step back three with 6:11 on the clock for his first points of the game.

That had the 'Cats within four and South East Melbourne talked it over, They responded well and quickly restored a nine-point lead when Broekhoff and Adnam connected from downtown.

A Mitch Creek deep two on the three quarter-time buzzer helped steady South East Melbourne to a 63-57 advantage, but Perth kept coming to start the fourth period.

A 6-0 run for the 'Cats had the margin back to two but Creek helped steady the Phoenix when he put up four straight points for the six-point edge nearing the halfway point of the quarter.

Another Adnam three-pointer put South East Melbourne up nine, but still the Wildcats refused to lie down. They went on a run of nine consecutive points topped by a Todd Blanchfield three to tie scores up with 1:30 to go.

Adnam made a pair of free-throws to put his team back up two with 44 seconds on the clock but eventually two more at the line from Adnam had the home team up four with 12.6 seconds left. Cotton attempted a three for Perth that didn’t fall and South East Melbourne won by four.

The Wildcats are quickly back in action on Monday night against the Tasmania JackJumpers while the Phoenix have until Friday when they play the Adelaide 36ers on the road.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 13

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 86 (Adnam 24, Creek 22, Le'afa 12)

PERTH WILDCATS 80 (Law 22, Cotton 15, Hodgson 10, Frazier 10) 

BOX SCORE