Low assists a warning sign for Wildcats

John Rillie doesn’t want to immediately jump at shadows, but he does feel there's a growing trend that the Perth Wildcats play at their best when sharing and moving the ball which didn’t happen enough against the Cairns Taipans.

The Wildcats lost in double overtime to the Taipans at RAC Arena on Saturday night to suffer consecutive defeats for the first time this season since October.

After losing to Melbourne United for a 10th time in 11 home games on Wednesday night, the Wildcats found the going tough against the bottom placed Snakes outside of a blistering 35-point third quarter.

The 'Cats couldn’t quite close the deal despite an eight-point lead with 3:45 to go before eventually losing after two overtime periods to now slip to fifth position with three games to go at home to South East Melbourne and Adelaide, and away to Sydney.

In 50 minutes of basketball, the Wildcats only had 14 assists as a team on 34 made field goals and 34 free-throw makes which is a potential warning sign of how the team played.

There is a chance their offence was playing the way Rillie wanted and given they only shot at 35 per cent, that contributed to the low assist count.

However, if it turns out it was more because they weren’t moving and sharing the ball to his liking, that's going to be a big focus before next Friday's monster home clash with the fourth placed Phoenix.

"To play a 50-minute game and for us to only have 14 assists, I'll be really interested and curious to watch where we could have been better in that area," Rillie said.

"We did a good job of taking care of the ball, only 10 turnovers, and we talked about how the rebounding was a huge part of it, and they marginally beat us.

"It just seemed that when they needed a moment they found the moment in that game where we just couldn’t. We just didn’t have any of those momentum type plays to get our team up and about, the crowd into it and all that. 

"We showed great fighting qualities, but it just wasn’t a great performance by us even though we hung around and found ways. We just couldn’t get over the hump with an emotional breaking play."

The numbers back up what Rillie is saying about the Wildcats playing their best basketball when they are moving and sharing the ball, leading to big assists numbers in wins.

While they have the brilliance of Bryce Cotton, even he is at his best when getting his teammates involved and had a career-high 12 assists in a win against the 36ers.

In the 15 wins the Wildcats have this season, they are averaging 20.7 assists and putting up 106.9 points as a result. In the losses, the assists number plummets to 15.7 and their scoring does the same with just 89.5 points.

It's something Rillie is going to spend plenty of time looking more into.

"The thing I come back to is that when we're really playing well on offence, our assist count is really high so for us to only have 14 that's what I'm really going to delve into at that end of the floor," Rillie said.

"I have to go back and watch because there's nights you can create great looks and you just miss, which is where the offensive rebounding really plays a key part and Keanu did a great job there to create opportunities for us.

"I'm not going to give an emotional answer until I watch and make sure we're playing the right way."

Rillie is hopeful the Wildcats will be back to full strength for next Friday night's home game against South East Melbourne.

Tai Webster is a good chance to play his first game since December 14 after being out with a hamstring injury while Rillie is hopeful Dylan Windler's eye that he hurt last Friday night will be all healed up.

"Both of those guys are progressing nicely and they're day-to-day," Rillie said.

"But we're hopeful that they'll be back with us here in the very near future."