Foul fest frustrates Phoenix

The South East Melbourne Phoenix didn’t leave Perth feeling they lost the Seeding Qualifier because of a high foul count, but it did ruin their enjoyment of it as they turn their attention to a home Play-In Game.

Because of the fact that there were 55 fouls called on Friday night at the Perth High Performance Centre with the Phoenix and Wildcats combining to go 66/77 at the free-throw line, South East Melbourne coach Josh King will quickly move on from it.

In the end, the Wildcats went 39/42 at the stripe and the Phoenix 27/35 so King didn’t feel it impacted the final result, it just wasn’t fun to be part of.

In fact, he might not even worry about going back to watch the game as he now gears up to get his team ready to host either the Sydney Kings or Adelaide 36ers in a Play-In Game on Sunday at John Cain Arena.

"I'm not even going to watch this game, I'm not going to dwell on it and I promise you, once I leave the game is over," King said.

"I'm not here to get fined, I'm just here to tell you that there were a lot of fouls called in that game and it wasn’t fun to watch or to be part of.

"I literally was bored from watching so many free throws being shot, I'm exhausted. You've gotta let the guys play, man.

"Every single time down they were shooting free throws and we were shooting free throws. It was both sides, it was just foul, foul, foul. I don't know if I've ever been part of a playoff game like that."

It was also quite the rollercoaster first quarter ride for King and his team.

After 19 seconds, he challenged an out of bounds call on the urging of Owen Foxwell but that didn't go their way and he had quickly burnt a time out.

Three minutes later the Wildcats were leading 20-4.

The Phoenix hit back with their own 14-0 run sparked by Angus Glover and they even grabbed the lead briefly, and still by late in the third quarter they were going well leading 86-83 before the Wildcats blew the game apart.

"I actually didn’t think it was out off Foxy and maybe that's what influenced the free-throw count on both sides, I don't know. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that," King mused.

"When I saw it I thought it was out off them and then Owen said he didn’t hit it so there was a double reason to challenge it.

"Angus was great and I didn’t call a timeout with the guys getting themselves out of that. We just needed to settle in and I thought we did, and it was a back and forth game there for a while.

"Then I think towards the end we just couldn’t keep up scoring late in the third and then going into the fourth. We just couldn’t keep up and weren’t getting stops."

Phoenix co-captain Jordan Hunter also found himself frustrated with the way the game was called and not just because he was limited to less than 13 minutes for the entire game because of his own foul trouble.

"I don't know who that's for, it's not for us because we're not having fun and neither is anyone watching," Hunter said.

"This is the best part of the season right now, everyone is geeked up and excited to get out there and it was just standing there for free-throw block-outs for three hours.

"It turns into everyone trying to manage quarter to quarter what they're doing instead of what people want to watch, what coaches want to coach and what players want to play.

"You don't want to talk too much to it because there won't be any accountability for it and we have a big game coming up and don't want to find out that way either."

Hunter has also turned his focus to a home Play-In Game on Sunday where it'll be against either his former Kings team or a 36ers team with a front court featuring Montrezl Harrell, Jarell Martin and Isaac Humphries for him to face.

"We were really keen to get this one done but that's not how it goes sometimes and we'll tune in Thursday to see who we're playing," Hunter said.

"Whoever it is we'll be geared up to play them in a game in John Cain. We'll be excited to lock in this top four spot that we earned through the course of the season, and we'll be ready to go to make sure we take care of it there against a good team whoever it is."