Often if you favour the talent on your team over that of your opponent, you may want to increase the tempo to magnify your advantage. The fewer the possessions, the more luck plays a role. The more possessions, the more that better percentages or player match-ups will win through.

The Cats may have figured that they had the talent advantage given Lisch was out, or pushed the ball more quickly when running their bench or their starters against a Hawks bench, etc.

That said, I suspect it's more difficult to control the tempo in front of a hostile crowd. Whatever you plan to do, your feeling of time may change and you naturally rush? From memory, one of the past Cats@Hawks games this season was high scoring too.

Game 1 in Illawarra, Wildcats WIN 106-99
Game 2 in Perth, Wildcats WIN 91-62
Game 3 in Illawarra, Wildcats WIN 99-96
Game 4 in Illawarra, Wildcats WIN 95-72

Games 1 & 3 showed that the tempo was probably played more on the Hawks level but the Cats matched it. Games 2 & 4 were just Perth dominating the Hawks defensively yet still they put up big scores, well above their season average of 85ppg.

The reason the Cats got smashed in game 2 was because their D was atrocious in the second half. Them pushing the ball had nothing to do with it.

The Cats can push the ball against the Hawks because the Hawks D generally isn't good enough to stop a team scoring.

Some people think of tempo as just how quickly the ball goes from end to end, but it's as much about composure in the half-court.

In Game 2 the Hawks often had Perth out of their offence, playing on the fly and rushing their execution, which played right into Illawarra's hands.

If the Wildcats keep their spacing and execute their sets they have plenty of physical advantages, but if they're rushing it allows the Hawks to cover their holes, gang rebound and run.

Tempo is critical, and Perth need to keep calm, whether they are pushing the pace or not. Of course, Illawarra can play slow too, but the more they go against a set defence the fewer open looks their shooters get, whereas the Wildcats' big men create open looks in the half-court.

I thought Perth did keep pretty calm at their own end and for the most part tried to run the right things. The plan at that end wasn't too bad IMO, their execution let them down.
Defence was the far bigger issue for us. And that's what the Hawks can do to you when they get rolling. That's why they're so dangerous, and why that 0-23 streak in Perth is not much comfort to me at all going into tonight.

Yes, but the defensive struggles came from the offensive end, their poor shots allowing the Hawks to rebound and run into offence before the Cats were set and put them into rotations.

What Perth had previously done a good job of against Illawarra was pound the offensive glass and keep them on defence for long stretches, which impacted their ability to run even on misses.

Isaac, offensively, the Wildcats are NOT more talented. Hawks are the best shooting team in the NBL.

This all comes down to tempo. If the Hawks can trick the Cats into getting into a high tempo game...i think the Hawks will win.

You trying to tell me Jawai, Knight and Jervis are high tempo players?

Martin is also not an explosive guard.

Martin is shooting 67% from three so far in the series, but let's not let the facts get in the way.

Pretty good tempo tonight :)

Basketball is one of the those sports that is almost equal mixtures of offence and defence.
So-called "tempo" reflects that.
At the end of the day, you can win with 80 points, or lose with 100, depending on your D.
Despite having two of the best defensive players in the league, Hawks are generally not as strong on D, relying on their offence. Also, even that magnificent offence is not as deep as Perth's.
With Lisch out there was possibly the expectation that the Hawks D would crumble, and that also losing their best offensive player would test their depth.
As it turned out, it was Perth's D that crumbled at times, and the Hawks second string stepped up big-time.

"Pretty good tempo tonight :)"

Yep, back to Wildcats basketball tonight, very clinical in the way they went about it, dominated possession, knew exactly when they had a numbers advantage, and made the Hawks guard a heap of screen exchanges if they didn't.