Wildcats reserves time to shine

The Perth Wildcats are expected to roll deep into their guard rotation in the crucial second game of the 2021 NBL Grand Final series against Melbourne United.

Game Two on Sunday will be the Wildcats final game at RAC Arena for the challenging 2021 campaign, with the series moving east for the final three games.

Perth fell in the series-opener by just three points, despite losing Luke Travers before the game and Clint Steindl in the second quarter.

As always, there’s a silver lining, and with Bryce Cotton also out, bench players took their opportunities to pick-up big Grand Final minutes.

Trevor Gleeson was particularly pleased with Wani Swaka Lo Buluk.

“I’m proud of them, they do the work. Probably Wani should have got more of an opportunity through the year, but it’s hard to play 11 guys, 12 guys sometimes in a 40-minute game,” he said.

“He was great, he’s going to get called on again, and Taylor Britt might get called on again too being another guard.

“We seem to have plenty of bigs, but we don’t have too many guards at the moment.”

Clint Steindl’s availability for Grand Final Game Two will be subject to a fitness test on game day.

The Wildcats focus for Game Two will once again be the possession game.

United were able to capitalise of offensive tip-outs at crucial times in Game One for 13 second chance points to Perth’s six, off the back of 13 offensive rebounds to eight.

Melbourne were also able to score 26 points off Wildcats turnovers.

Despite that, it was only a three-point margin, with the Wildcats defence able to hold United to 73 points.

Game Two tips off at RAC Arena at 3pm on Sunday.

Tickets available here.