Sixers Fire to Put Spanner in Wildcats' Finals Run

The Adelaide 36ers produced one of the biggest shocks of the season, beating the Perth Wildcats in a 82-70 boilover that rocked RAC Arena with the 36ers’ trio of Daniel Johnson, Dusty Hannahs and Sunday Dech combined for 67 points. 

The 36ers, seeking only their second win on the road this year, were desperate to prove themselves in arguably the toughest away fixture in the NBL. 

The Wildcats, on the other hand, looked absent-minded at times, as if a win was a formality. In front of the stunned home fans, it was the 36ers’ intense desire that propelled them above expectations, claiming an 82-70 win.  

It was on from the get-go, as the 36ers built a surprising 10-4 lead after barely two minutes of play, boosted by 3/3 shooting that included two three-pointers. It didn’t stop there. 

By quarter-time, the 36ers had stretched that margin to 15 thanks to an enormous display from Sunday Dech, whose 11 points in the opener alone matched his per game average. 

Dech would finish with a game-high 23 points and nine much-needed rebounds but as much as that was impressive, his defensive performance on Bryce Cotton was even more brilliant. Cotton had just seven points on 3/16 shooting.

Dusty Hannahs returned after missing the last three games with a wrist injury to put up 15 points in the first half on his way to 21 for the match. 

Sixers coach CJ Bruton was rightfully proud of his team's performance.

"The attention to detail showed that they were very switched on clearly coming back off losing our last home game," Bruton said. 

"There is so much that different teams run so we focused in on a couple of points and it's more about the individual scout, and what we wanted to take away from certain players on the Wildcats roster.

"The boys were very switched on, they played great attention to detail and they delivered. The former Wildcat (Dech) came out and played his part as well as the former Willetton player DJ back in their old home towns."

It helped that 36ers great Daniel Johnson produced a vintage display, where he was 5/7 from the field in the first half on his way to 23 points, which was an equal high. 

With six minutes left in the second quarter, Adelaide reached a 20-point lead that no team had come back from this NBL season. To boot, it was the 15th time in 25 games that the Wildcats had found themselves down by 10 points or more. 

The frustration was boiling over on the Wildcats’ sidelines, with Scott Morrison’s demonstrative urges towards the referee and heated dialogue earning the head coach a technical foul. 

It soured a brief run where the Wildcats had cut into the lead. The Wildcats’ Vic Law (20 points, five rebounds) and Matt Hodgson (16 points, eight rebounds) were scoring in tandem, but granted little support from their teammates.  

Morrison didn’t hold back on what he thought of the performance afterwards.

"In any shoving match, one person is doing the shoving and one person is getting shoved. You can guess which one of those we were tonight," Morrison said. 

"I don’t mean there was anything dirty, I mean one team came out tough to play hard to win, and one team came out soft. I think it's pretty obvious what's going on and of the nine or 10 losses we've had this year, I've tried to come in and take the blame, or at least say I can do better myself first. 

"That's still the case whether we win or lose. But I think the players side of the locker room has to look inside themselves after this one and see if they care about getting into the playoffs or not. 

"Adelaide is a good enough team to beat us on a good night when we play hard, but we sure as hell aren’t beating anyone when we came out like we did in the first half. It was embarrassing."

Perhaps the most surreal aspect of the match was that it took until a minute from half-time for Cotton to score his first points, when the triple MVP finally converted on his seventh field-goal attempt. 

But 30 seconds later, he had his second. The half-time margin was 11, allowing CJ Bruton to head into the locker-room with a skip in his step.  

Rather than eat into the margin, the Wildcats instead watched as the 36ers extended it in the third quarter. Dech was active under the rim, keeping plays alive on the offensive boards and blowing by the 36ers with his finishing in the paint. 

The Wildcats were desperate for a spark, and while they could usually count on that from Cotton, he could only add a free-throw from a Hannahs technical foul in the entire third quarter. 

By the time Sixers captain Mitch McCarron (eight points, eight rebounds) forced a turnover after some sloppy Perth play that set up an easy dunk with seven minutes to go, which extended the stretch back to 19 points, this was as good as over. 

Clock management became a priority for the 36ers, who began to squeeze every second of the shot clock. It capped a magnificent coaching performance from Bruton. 

The Wildcats need to bounce back on Saturday again at home to Cairns Taipans to avoid leaving the top four door open for the Tasmania JackJumpers. The Sixers remain on the road to take on a Sydney Kings team on a 13-game winning run on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 20

PERTH WILDCATS 70 (Law 20, Hodgson 16, Blanchfield 9)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 82 (Johnson 23, Dech 23, Hannahs 23) 

BOX SCORE