Still home court for second team.

I think Dazz is referring to home court advantage for the GF. 2nd team would only get that if 1st placed team is knocked out in the semi finals.

"Still home court for second team."
Not in the final.
If NZ win the Minor Premiership, might as well cancel the finals and just give them the Pennant. LOL

""Hire should be back"
Based on what?
I heard he is not playing this one"
Yeah, "should" being the operative word.
Two weeks ago he was supposedly ready to resume, now he's back to "1~2 weeks."
Cats are probably starting to wish they'd signed somebody beside Muo as injury replacement.

"Knight to miss up to eight weeks with a broken toe"
Big loss on the eve of an important game. Jervis will step up, but Perth need another scoring option.
Really going to be hard to cover Knight's output.

really unsure why its not telecast on OneHD. the Sydney v Townsville game is, and its not even an interesting game in theory. perth v cairns is given its 2nd and 3rd. nbl governance over OneHD is crap

Really hoping Nathan Sobey (replacing injured Maynard) will get some minutes tonight. He was impressive when making up the numbers for the Taipans in the preseason games against Melbourne, and no surprise they took the opportunity to have him under contract.

After winning the Reptile Rumble last week, Cairns comes into tonight's game looking to edge closer to second spot on the ladder. For the away side, Jermaine Beal continues to be a consistent scoring threat, ready to explode at any moments notice.

This is a tale of 2 very different teams, Perth lives and dies by it’s guard play and the brilliance of Daniels. Whilst, Cairns get most of its contributions from it’s strong interior work and their talented big men. Tonight’s game comes down to which team can get stops when it matters and who controls the half court game.

Preview: Snakes host 'Cats in potential Semi Final match-up

Perth by 5 is my prediction.

goodnight perth. woohoo

Fearne showing his true colours and lack of class. Beal clearly with cramp after foul and he bitches to refs. Well done fearne, not

Cairns up 14 23 seconds to go and fearne calls timeout, another classy call

Another injury cursed season for the cats. NZ would have to be favourites and cairns would fancy their chances against the breakers. Title race is wide open

I was more annoyed at fearne letting Perth get a 5 point lead in the third before calling a timeout. That and letting Loughton play so much when he makes such poor decisions.

Anyone else who saw the game wondering how there was no foul call on Martyn after he clean blocked Wilbekin but then landed on his head?

That attitude by Fearne was appalling. He really is classless. I struggle to find anything to like about him.

I agree with comments made about ferne. Beal was clearly injured with cramp and in pain and Fearne complains to officals as if too say who cares lets continue playing. Poor form by Fearne and not a good look for a head coach.

Several injuries now for Perth. Will be a very tough few weeks for them with a depleted roster.

Obviously a bit of "bad luck" there for the Cats, but it does raise questions about their roster management and contingency planning.
It's weird, they did well in the off-season, and some would say pulled a couple of rabbits. Then Hire gets injured, and contingency planning seems to have flown out the window?
Hire was only supposed to be sidelined for 6 weeks, so clearly they figured no big deal, Muo's still hanging around so we'll let him fill a chair on the bench. That decision has basically seen them playing with a 4-man bench for 12 weeks, and tonight it really bit them in the ass.

Jervis is more than capable of stepping up for Knight, and this game could still have gone either way. Nobody could have predicted the rotten confluence of events; Knight out on the eve, Ross rupturing his achilles, Redhage getting limited impact, Beal getting cramp, and U'U being unable to find the basket. However the shallow bench was exposed.

Depleted by injury, the Perth Wildcats were simply outclassed by the Cairns Taipans on Friday night as the defending NBL champions have surrendered their second placing on the NBL ladder after Cairns defeated the 'Cats 91-76 inside the Cairns Convention Centre.

Cairns snatch second spot with win over injury riddled ‘Cats

WTF with the Fearne classless bullshit....dickheads!

I was at the game and the whole thing went on far too long, get the player off the fucking court and let the game go on.

to many times we see these situations(real or not) used as ploys to take momentum etc out of game/crowd!!

get the player off the fucking court and let the game commence....who ever the player is....and what ever the team !!

Skull,like your coach, classless. If a player is injured, you just don't take them off the court because the opposition coach shows now class, its all about duty of care. You could clearly see he was cramping in his upper thigh, he was under the basket, he couldn't go anywhere if you had a cramp in the middle of the aisle at the game, you try moving out of the aisle whilst having a cramp.

"Perth fans don't deal well with adversity or losing.... always someone or something else to blame.

As far as I am concerned it (bad luck) couldn't happen to a more deserving and arrogant team."

Oh gees, would you like fish with those chips?

@wildcats80, firstly Fearne is not my coach...
secondly,people like you are one of the reasons why Perth are becoming alienated from the rest of the league(plus their success;0 & $)

@anon dickhead,im pretty sure that Beal had a cramp....trying to slow himself down,huh,WTF?? did the coaching staff see an opportunity to slow things down & lose crowd momentum...absolutely !!

"people like you are one of the reasons why Perth are becoming alienated from the rest of the league(plus their success;0 & $)"

People like this are the reason Melbourne can only get a few thousand to their games despite representing the biggest basketball city in the country. Because they would rather resent United's (Tigers') success, and whinge that the team they supported 30 years ago is nolonger in the league, instead of getting out and supporting the team they do have.

And here's the rub: The Wildcats have a 14,000+ seat venue, 9000+ members, and can sell another 3000+ tickets to most games. They are rolling in the money and will continue to be consistently above average UNTIL the rest of the league catches up (or at least gets to a decent sustainable standard of support.) Otherwise those teams will continue to struggle from season to season, with good seasons followed by long droughts when they can barely afford to keep the lights on.
People need to spend less time complaining about the Cats, and more time getting out and supporting their own teams.

@Dazz, I love what the wildcats have done, they are the envy and hope of all the other clubs.
Along the way, milking that old West Australian"us against them thing" beautifully.

Being at the game and watching it first hand - I didn't think much about Fearne asking why the player wasn't moved off the court for treatment. The issue Fearne had (from the coaches mouth) was that the player was in obvious distress and needed to get off the court for treatment and not be treated on the court. If he had a more serious injury then get the medics/stretcher etc out. But not have everyone come on and delay the game at a key momentum point, because medical staff were treating what is a minor issue (a cramp)on court when he should be moved to the sideline where he can get proper attention to return ASAP. Fact of the matter is that once Fearne complained why the game was being held up when Beal needed work off court and not on it (if your injured you get subbed out, not treated while the game waits for you), he got up and walked gingerly off court to the change rooms and returned a few minutes after. So call Fearne classless for pointing out a basketball rule regarding treating injured players - lets not point out the fact Beal rolled around like he did an ACL then walked off and came back on 5 min later - cause anyone could conclude that he was either faking (not likely he was hurting bad and you could see his leg spasm), over exagerrating to get a foul and or the wildcats staff dragging out treatment as a pseudo timeout/breather with the snakes having the momentum. Him walking off after complaining then coming back on minutes later would support that. Now if pointing out a FIBA rule regarding injured players is classless - what the hell is screaming like a stuffed pig over a cramp, delaying the game and then coming back minutes later as if nothing had happened ???

When Trigger at last New Years game rolled his ankle on Dmart's foot. The medical team came over, assessed and got him off the court and subbed him out faster than Beal rolling around for a cramp. He was out for the rest of the season. So which player and medical team has more class then ?

Get off the anti-perth shit - it gets boring. Loughton gave as good as he got - wagstaff sets hard screens and so does Jervis. All players push the limits as its what they get paid to do. Sometimes you get away with it, sometimes you dont. Redhage tries his crap all the time and he got 2 dodgy calls because he shits in his own nest. Its not a perth thing, its a redhage thing.

Perth are and will be for a long time, the premier pro basketball team in Australia. They know their shit and share their learnings to make the league better. No perth, no league - simple.

Then everyone get of the anti Perth shit in the way they play! Really, we had no Knight, no hire and Ross, redhage didn't play really and they came back from 16 down, Perth showed heart and those calls if we played at home the fame was ours, cairns couldn't dominated a half Perth team at home and u think u got a chance against nz?

Game

Venom: from my mind to your keyboard. Well said.