King: 'interesting' foul count

Josh King likes to deal in facts and Bryce Cotton has taken more free throws than the entire South East Melbourne Phoenix team in his two games in Perth, with him bewildered Matt Hurt didn’t get to the line once.

King has now coached the Phoenix in two games in Perth this season, with the Wildcats attempting 51 free throws to just 20 from South East Melbourne in those.

Four-time MVP Cotton has gone 21/22 at the stripe in those two wins for the Wildcats while the Phoenix in total as a team have gone 19/20 with their own leading scorer Hurt going 2/2 across both match ups.

While that was a sense of frustration, giving up a 12-point lead early in the fourth quarter only magnified that.

However, there is no point worrying about things you can't control, so King's focus is onto the Adelaide 36ers for Sunday's John Cain Arena homecoming with the Phoenix needing the win to stay a chance for third or fourth position with a Throwdown to finish next Saturday night.

"We shot ourselves in the foot and it's not because of the free-throw margin why we lost," King said.

"We lost the game and we could have won the game very easily, and if we won we're probably not talking about that but we have to focus on the next game.

"That's for fans and the media, and I promise you we're going to get on the plane tomorrow and we're only focused on the Adelaide game on Sunday.

"I just told the guys in the locker room that they played a good ball game, didn’t finish it out and they can be disappointed, but let's keep the same energy and we have guys pissed off in the locker room. As they should be because they played well enough to win the game on the road."

The free-throw count isn’t what King is pointing to for the loss, though he did see that the Phoenix didn’t play with the same offensive dynamic style after being up 12 early in the fourth.

They also had some costly turnovers which is where the absence of Derrick Walton Jr is felt, but ultimately that 51-20 number over two games is something King wanted to get off his chest.

"We didn’t play with the same pace on offence in the fourth quarter and we got stymied a little bit, and the ball didn’t move as well, but overall the pace was great and we took 88 shots," King said.

"That's freakin' awesome. We went to the basket quite a bit taking 60 twos and it's just interesting, and I love stating facts when I come to Perth.

"In these two games on the road in Perth, it's 51 to 20 for them in free throws. It's not the only reason but how do you want me to look at my guys in the locker room when it's 51 to 20 on the road for the two games I've coached here.

"Give us half of those attempts and I think we'll figure out a way to win the game."

There were a lot of interesting things that stood out to King about Friday night's game, but none more so than Hurt not attempting a single free-throw despite the majority of his 19 shot attempts being inside the paint and heavily contested.

"Matt Hurt didn’t take a free-throw tonight, that's crazy to me," King said.

"He took a lot of shots around the basket and close right, he didn’t take 19 threes did he? You guys are making me look like an excuse maker but it's a good observation about Matt Hurt, and so is the 51-20. It's fun to keep up with that number."

King and the Phoenix don’t have time to worry about what happened in Perth with their focus already now on hosting Adelaide on Sunday in their first game at John Cain Arena since before Christmas.

"We're excited to play and no matter who it is, it's a big game because it's our next game and it's playoff time," King said.

"We're both kinda neck and neck there in the standings, and I'm sure they're not happy tonight. We're not happy so you're going to have two fired up teams in John on Sunday at 4:30."