Perth Wildcats Assistant coach Gerard Martin believes his side is better equipped to combat Melbourne United in the upcoming NBL Finals series, with a refined game plan in action.
The two sides will battle in a best-of-three Playoff series that kicks off at John Cain Arena – Melbourne United’s stomping ground, on Thursday night.
Perth’s Semi-Finals foe has proven to be a bogey side for them, inflicting three of the Wildcats’ 11 losses on them throughout the season.
The first time the sides met, Melbourne took out a resounding 97-68 win, but Perth managed to reel it back in and closed the gap, with nine and four point losses in the following two matches.
Speaking ahead of Thursday’s Semi Final, Martin told Sports Breakfast,the Wildcats are prepared to tackle Melbourne United with a different defensive approach.
“The big thing for us is making sure we’re doing a nice job with our spacing, keeping guys out of the paint,” he said.
“They do a great job protecting the paint with all their defenders. We’ve got to make sure we clear space in the right ways.
“Defensively, they’re a very physical team. Shea Ili, Matthew Dellavedova, Jack White, Marcus Lee – guys who put a ton of pressure on the rim and that’s without even talking about Chris Golding.
“The key emphasis has been protecting the paint, building our walls and then getting to those key shooters so they can’t break the game open.
“It’s been a great week to build up preparation, but practice isn’t just quite like the game, so we’re really excited for tomorrow.”
Bolstering a fitter squad than the last few matches against Melbourne, the Wildcats defence will have sharpshooter Chris Goulding on their minds.
Goulding put up an outstanding 46-point display against their second game against the Wildcats back in November, with the WA side looking to prevent a repeat during finals.
Martin believes his side has learned from that and has made adjustments to stop Melbourne’s dangerman, with the likes of Kristian Doolittle at the forefront.
“Those moments were highlighted throughout the season, and it really helped us improve our overall defense, especially for some of the younger guys who hadn’t been in those moments before,” he said.
“We’ve seen the improvement of Ben Henshall on that end of the floor. He’s now doing a great job and now with Tai Webster back, we can kind of throw different bodies at these guys.
“Then with Kristian Doolittle, Keanu Pinder, Dave Okwera, Jesse Wagstaff, our bigs can kind of take advantage of those matchups.
“As much as it sucks when it happens in the season, you learn through failure. We’ve now made some big improvements and adjustments and it’s helped our defense to then get enough stops so that we could play transition offensive.”
Perth have the opportunity to seal the best-of-three series at RAC Arena on Saturday night in front of a packed home crowd, provided they take victory in Thursday night’s final.
Melbourne United, who already has the upper hand with the season head-to-head record, also has won 10 of the last 11 matches in Perth.
Despite the statistics going against the Wildcats favour, Martin says their mindset is focused on sealing up the series as early as they can.
“We’ve talked about playing with a ton of confidence and going out there and really getting after it and not leaving it to chance,” he said.
“That’s been a huge emphasis – see if we can seal this one on the road, bring it home and close out in front of our fans because we feel like if we keep playing the way we have the last couple of weeks, we’re really tough to stop when we’re playing with that confidence.
“That starts from JR. His belief and confidence in his team has been through the roof from day one and we’re now just seeing what we could really achieve this late in the season.”
“It’s going to be fun. If we can get this one done tomorrow, the Saturday night game at RAC will be electric.”
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