Wildcats blow Taipans away to stay in hunt

The Perth Wildcats responded as you would expect blowing away the Cairns Taipans in the third quarter to keep the race for NBL top spot alive with the 100-79 win on Friday night.

The 'Cats returned to RAC Arena to play in front of 10,671 welcoming fans determined to make up for a loss in Brisbane on Wednesday night that came after they led by 18 points earlier in the night.

Cairns came out and took it right up to them on their home floor as well with the bottom placed team up two at quarter-time and within five of the Wildcats at half-time.

Perth, though, would blow the game wide open with a dominant third quarter to set up the eventual 21-point victory that keeps them right in the mix for top spot still Melbourne United.

The win improves the 'Cats to 23-9 on the season while United are 24-7. The two teams meet in the final round in Perth and if they finish on the same record, top spot will be decided on percentage and it's the Wildcats with the edge in that department right now.

Bryce Cotton (5/9 from deep) and Todd Blanchfield (4/10) put up 19 points apiece for the Wildcats while John Mooney delivered another 16 points and eight rebounds.

Clint Steindl hit another 11 points after equalling his career-high 25 on Wednesday in Brisbane with Tom Jervis adding eight points and three assists, and Mitch Norton seven points and five assists.

Will Magnay got another 22 minutes under his belt and while he didn’t score on one field goal attempt, he had nine rebounds for Perth.

Wildcats coach Trevor Gleeson was happy with what his team got out of the game on a number of fronts.

"We ticked a few boxes tonight and we knew we were going to get a response from Cairns, and they played fairly well in the first quarter shooting the ball extremely well," Gleeson said.

"They played the zone the entire first half but we were able to turn the defensive intensity up in the second and third quarters, and take it from there. 

"Bryce twinged his groin again there so we are going to have to see how that is at the moment, but I was really happy for John just to find that mid-range game and be consistent with that, and then Will had a really big impact on the defensive end which is what we want with his rebounding and intimidating a few shots. We ticked a few boxes that way."

Mirko Djeric hit five threes to top-score for Cairns with 15 points while Scott Machado added 11 points and four assists, and Nate Jawai 10 points and four rebounds but he rarely saw the ball after quarter-time.

The Taipans left 11 points out there at the foul line with Venky Jois having a horror show at the stripe missing his first seven attempts before even the Red Army raucously cheered his make on the eighth attempt.

Todd Blanchfield wasted no time making up for missing Wednesday's game in Brisbane by hitting two early threes, and before long the 'Cats were up 17-10.

But to the credit of Cairns, they answered the call and with three huge threes from Mirko Djeric to close out the opening quarter, it was the Snakes with the 28-26 lead by quarter-time.

A couple of Bryce Cotton three-pointers saw Perth regain the lead to start the second period before five quick points from Tom Jervis saw their lead grow to seven.

Once again, though, the Taipans refused to go away and triples from Jordan Ngatai and Mojave King helped the visitors cut Perth's lead to 47-42 by half-time.

For the first three minutes of the second half the Taipans were able to stick with the Wildcats, but it wouldn’t last. From the moment Majok Deng hit a three to keep the margin five, Perth scored 23 of the game's next 27 points to put the result well beyond doubt.

That stretch included three bombs from downtown in no time from Cotton before Clint Steindl added another heading towards three quarter-time the 'Cats were in control up 77-56.

To the Taipans' credit, they started the fourth quarter impressively going on a 12-3 run including three balls from Djeric and Scott Machado, and an and-one from George Blagojevic.

That cut the margin back to 12 but Perth responded and even with another little Cairns 8-0 flurry, Corey Shervill hit two late triples and the Wildcats cruised to the 21-point win.

The Wildcats now head to Adelaide to play the 36ers on Sunday while the Taipans are straight over to Wollongong to take on the Illawarra Hawks later that same day.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 19

PERTH WILDCATS 100 (Cotton 19, Blanchfield 19, Mooney 16)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 79 (Djeric 15, Machado 11, Jawai 10) 

BOX SCORE