Wells: Sixers “did a lot of good things” despite Perth loss

Adelaide 36ers Head Coach Mike Wells has given the Perth Wildcats credit for limiting his side’s scoring late in Sunday’s loss at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

The Sixers looked in control as the last quarter played out with a six point advantage with seven minutes to play, but then tensed up and found it hard to score as the Wildcats won 87-94 in front of a record 10,029 crowd.

While disappointed that his side has slipped to a 7-3 record ahead of a mid-week trip to Tasmania, Wells found some positives to take from the performance.

“I thought we played a really good free flowing third and it got a little tight in the fourth and you know, give them credit for their defensive game plan and forcing us into some tougher looks and you know, we just didn't quite make the play there at the end.

“We did a lot of really good things - you know, five guys in double figures, 32 bench points.

“The problem in the first half was offensive rebounding. I think they had 14 at the half, ended with 16. You know, we cleaned up a lot of things.

“Unfortunately, we just didn't get the clean looks that we needed to get (at the end).”

There were a lot of eyes on Bryce Cotton in his first game against the side where he won five NBL MVP awards and three championships.

And he may have had some nerves in the first period, going one from five from the field. He hit a big three pointer to settle the nerves and pulled down three rebounds in the quarter, being cheered by the home crowd on every possession.

But it was a double team of big men – Isaac Humphries and Nick Rakocevic – which did most of the scoring as the Sixers took a narrow lead into the first break.

Rakocevic had 12 points to half time to surpass his season high score and Cotton found his rhythm from beyond the arc, but it remained a one-point game in the Sixers’ favour at half time.

Another three pointer on the three-quarter time buzzer had Cotton up to 17 points and he had plenty of friends contributing on the scoresheet with five Sixers in double figures as the home side led by four points at the final break.

 The lead was six points with a little over seven minutes to play but then the Sixers struggled to find an avenue to the basket and the Wildcats kept scoring to close it out 18-5 from that point.

Despite that Isaac White hit a three pointer and had a chance for a second seconds later from an almost identical spot to tie the score with 16 seconds remaining, only for it to rim out.

Wells gave the Wildcats credit for the way they slowed his side’s scoring, lamenting the Sixers’ inability to get further in front in the last quarter when the opportunity was there.

“You give them credit, that last five minutes, unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to sort of wrestle the momentum back,” Wells said.

“And I say that and we still had a wide open look to tie the game, but I know we wanted the crowd in it, we wanted to be playing fast, we wanted to be making our shots, and we wanted to take the lead and go from 6 to 12, right? And we just couldn't do that.”

The Sixers next travel to Tasmania to face the JackJumpers on Thursday night.