Preview: Adelaide v Perth (Round 10)

When: 7.30pm (AEDT), Friday 9 December, 2022

Where: Adelaide Entertainment Centre

Broadcast: ESPN; Kayo; Foxtel, Sky NZ

Who won last time?

Adelaide 96 (Franks 21, Johnson 17, Cleveland 16) d Perth 82 (Cotton 17, Webster 14, Manek 11) – Round 8 at RAC Arena, Perth

Adelaide were seeking redemption for their Round 6 home loss to the Wildcats and they brought the heat from tip-off, running hard off turnovers and misses to rack up 54 first-half points with the entire 36ers team geared into disrupting defensively and Robert Franks, Antonius Cleveland and Daniel Johnson dominating the frontcourt offensively. Perth gave one brief charge in the third, but ultimately this is a night for them to forget.

What happened last game?

Last Saturday in Auckland was a night to remember for the 'Cats, who had to retrieve double-figure deficits in the first and second terms before putting on an offensive clinic the Breakers had no answer for. Adelaide didn’t appear up for the fight in Sydney on Sunday, disappointing after they showed huge character to charge back from 19 points down against Cairns two days earlier on the back of an inspired defensive and open-court effort.

What’s working?

Popping passes – Perth scored an incredible 59 points in 20 minutes against New Zealand bridging the second and fourth quarters, dishing 14 dimes in that span as they selflessly found the open man. To put that in perspective, the Wildcats lead the NBL in assists with 19.2 per 40 minutes. In wins, Perth average 22.7 dimes per game, with a remarkable assist percentage of 69, compared to just 16.2 and 57 per cent in their seven losses.

Energy – The 36ers rank second in steals and steal percentage, but there is a stark difference in their energy from wins to losses. CJ Bruton’s men average 9.0 thefts in six wins, but just 6.8 in six defeats. They simply didn’t bring the heat last week against Sydney, pinching the ball just once in the opening half, and no Sixer other than Mitch McCarron had a steal in the opening 28 minutes. They need to be in the lanes early and often.

What needs stopping?

Thieving Mitch – A big key to generating that energy is McCarron, who has had a whopping 19 steals in the past six games. His other important role is finding the balance between making Franks the offensive focus and keeping the ball moving. In the past four wins he’s averaged five assists, compared to three in the past four Ls, and McCarron needs to explore with intent early in the offence, rather than defer to Franks and Co by default.

Firing up Corey – Webster had 14 points on 4/9 from deep last time against Adelaide, but it was still a far cry from the game-owning star who helped New Zealand win titles. But the Breakers sure helped the old C-Web reappear, burning his former team for 26 points at 58 per cent as he went 6/7 on the midrange game that propelled him to third on the 2019 FIBA World Cup scoring charts. You can be no one from Adelaide will stir the pot before Friday!

Who’s matching up?

Daniel Johnson v Brady Manek – When the Wildcats beat Adelaide, Manek had 25 points on 6/8 from long range. In their Round 8 loss to the 36ers he had 11 points on 1/6 from deep. In the two games since, the former Tar Heel has racked up 35 points on 9/15 from outside. After scoring 18 points in three games, including four in the loss to the 'Cats, DJ has responded with 16ppg at 55 per cent in the following three, including 17 in the win in Perth. He went 3/8 from distance in Sydney, which is an ominous warning to the rest of the NBL.

Antonius Cleveland v Bryce Cotton – Adelaide have had success curtailing Cotton in recent years, but this season they’ve taken it to a new level, keeping the scoring machine to just 16ppg at 31 per cent, including 3/16 inside the arc while giving up just six free throws in two games. Cotton has shot above 36 per cent in just one of his past five games, so Cleveland, Sunday Dech and the 36ers’ ball-screen defence better be ready for him to come out firing.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BC GOES BANG! ?<br><br>? Watch live on ESPN via Kayo &amp; Foxtel <a href="https://t.co/OVocNWYLZg">pic.twitter.com/OVocNWYLZg</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1598947263774015489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Who’s saying what?

It’s a special night in Adelaide on Friday as one of the 36ers’ greatest sons, Daniel Johnson, plays his 400th NBL game.

The quietly-spoken star has been the one constant throughout a decade of flux for the history club, and he fits comfortably in any conversation about the NBL’s greatest-ever offensive big men.

However, if you asked DJ a decade ago about this milestone game between Adelaide and Perth, he would have told you he’d be wearing a Wildcats uniform.

“I thought Adelaide was going to be a pit stop to be honest,” he said.

“I’m a Perth boy and wanted to be home with family, but I met my wife and everything is history now. Adelaide is home, things have worked out well. I do love the city.”

Of course, with the 36ers sitting on a 6-6 record inside the top six, half-a-game ahead of Perth on the outside, the result of this game has a lot more riding on it than just good memories for the milestone man.

“It’s a massive game for us, Perth are below us on the ladder, so winning this match will get us up there,” Johnson said.

Yet whether Adelaide can prevail has a lot to do with which Wildcats team turns up on the night.

John Rillie’s men were clinical the last time they ventured to the City of Churches, but listless at home when the 36ers came to town.

They blew a golden opportunity against an undermanned Bullets, then put on a performance to remember to beat the all-conquering Breakers.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">What a quarter for Webster!!<br>Game-high 22 points and counting! <a href="https://t.co/4PQdhJZho8">pic.twitter.com/4PQdhJZho8</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1598949330647650304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

While much of the focus has been on rookie coach Rillie, much of Perth’s woes have been out of his control.

JR hasn’t been responsible for the roller-coaster shooting displays of floor-spreader Brady Manek, the slow climb to 100 per cent fitness for Mitch Norton, and especially the sub-par rebounding efforts of his import big men.

However, Rillie would have been delighted to see Manek and TaShawn Thomas – who both come with solid rebounding pedigree – rip in 12 boards between them in Auckland.

While Thomas was an All-First Team star in France’s top division, he’s starting to adjust to the role he needs to play to be successful in the NBL.

“Defensively I feel like I’ve taken a step forward and I’m just going to continue to get to better,” he said.

“That was my challenge, going back to the old TaShawn and my roles before and not realising that I was brought here to do something different than I was before.

“Knowing that I can still do what I can do when it comes to scoring, but just doing what the coach wants me to do defensively and on the rebounds.

“Whenever it’s my turn to score I’ll let that happen, (but) I’m not trying to focus on just scoring anymore.”

For Rillie, his team’s improved rebounding performance against the Breakers resulted from their much-improved defensive energy and execution.

“Defensively we were connected, we were locked in, we rebounded better because we weren’t rotating,” he said.

“We just turned it around because we played the way we can play.”

There’s no doubt Rillie will enter Friday’s game with some sort of trepidation, hoping the win over the ditch is a catalyst for consistency, but knowing the 36ers are a team that will punish a lack of energy with highlight-reel plays.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">With the mixed results from the last round, TaShawn Thomas said the team are focusing on the positives. <br><br>Full presser: <a href="https://t.co/HPGGru5pTJ">https://t.co/HPGGru5pTJ</a> <a href="https://t.co/zMWPpMu5zi">pic.twitter.com/zMWPpMu5zi</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1600055559977172993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 6, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“Adelaide are an up-tempo, energetic, very athletic team who like to be disruptive, and they prey on your mistakes,” he said.

“We were atrocious at RAC against them last time, so we should be motivated just to go in to perform better because we were not good as a team, and we were not good as individuals.

“Adelaide is going to play the way they do, Mitch McCarron, Robert Franks, Antonius Cleveland, Anthony Drmic, they’re not changing as players, but we can step up to the challenge and be responsible for slowing these guys down.”

Often though, it’s the 36ers who slow themselves down.

They hit the court in Sydney with a remarkable lack of intensity last round, as they did in the first half against Cairns when coach CJ Bruton said “the casualness was like watching an NBA game when they’ve played 50 games”.

Against the Kings there was no ball pressure, no one in the passing lanes and the champs ran them out of town.

“They got a lot of points in the paint. They shot 66 per cent from the two, so we were getting the ball out of the net we didn’t have our pace in transition as we did the other night to get us going in the second half,” Mitch McCarron said.

“We need to be better defensively and creating opportunities for ourselves.”

While it has been a frustrating season for the up-and-down Sixers, the experienced Johnson is trying to keep his team on an even keel, knowing their best basketball is good enough to make a big challenge later in the season.

“There has been some ups and downs, there is every year, but everyone is on the same page now and we are heading in the right direction,” he said.

“It’s a good group of guys, we are just trying to figure it out by the right time of the year.”