Perth Wildcats import Kristian Doolittle has questioned his team’s ability to defend as coach John Rillie admitted they are nowhere near good enough at the moment after losing their fourth game in a row on Sunday.
The Wildcats lost 100-92 against Cairns at RAC Arena to follow on from losses to Brisbane, Illawarra and Sydney. Perth have fallen from second on the ladder following a strong start to the season and are now seventh with a 5-6 record as pressure mounts.
They hadn’t lost four consecutive games since 2022 and Rillie said they must improve quickly.
“We’re just not playing good enough as a group. We show good patches at both ends of the floor and at different moments. But overall, we’re just not playing good enough for long enough, and we’re we’re seeing the results of how we’re performing right now,” he said.
Perth were missing import Brandon Knight (hamstring) but they are confident he will be available for Thursday night’s home game against Tasmania. But Jo Lual-Acuil (calf) remains unavailable.
The run of big scores against them is a major problem. They have conceded 100, 109, 105, 99, 102 and 102 across their past six matches.
The Wildcats couldn’t contain Jack McVeigh, who scored 36 points including eight three-pointers, or Jaylon Brown, who made six of his 10 three-point shots.
“We’re just struggling to play defence,” Doolittle said.
“They made 20 threes tonight, and so every game has been a microcosm of a bigger problem. I feel like each team that we’ve lost to has beaten us in a different way.
“(On Sunday) it was a three point shot. They made a lot of contested ones, and some of them were uncontested. I just think we have to be able to guard. Giving up over 100 points every game is going to be difficult.
“While we didn’t have to come back from 20 (points down) in the first quarter like we did in a couple other games, it was still just fighting uphill. It’s just being able to just get past it. I feel like sometimes we’re down on ourselves after we we play good defence and then they still make the shot.
“Wags (Jesse Wagstaff) is reiterating to us that’s just going to happen sometimes. They’re professionals and they work on the stuff that they do as well. And so I just feel like we have to have that next play mentality.”
The Wildcats responded to their run of losses by making changes to the starting five. Jaron Rillie and Alex Higgins-Titsha replaced Angus Brandt and Anthony Dell’Orso in the starting line-up and they played with more energy. But it still resulted in another loss at home.
Perth have two home games remaining among a congested series of games at RAC Arena before travelling for 10 of their next 11 matches.
But Rillie said he’d never looked at the fixture beyond the next game.
“We can only worry about what’s right in front of us versus what’s months away,” Rillie said.
“We did a great job as a road team last year. Any time we lose, we’re disappointed and we’re trying to fix things. It’s really disappointing when the fans show up like they do, and and you lose. But we can only go one game at a time.”
Elijah Pepper top scored for Perth with 26 points while Doolittle finished with 20 points and eight rebounds.
