ADELAIDE coach Joey Wright said he could sense the tension building in his side’s clash with the Perth Wildcats.
But he doesn’t expect the fight that broke out in the dying second of the 36ers 111-90 loss to the Wildcats on Friday, to have any impact on the way his side plays in Sunday’s return clash in Adelaide.
With less than one second to go at Perth Arena, Adelaide’s Brendan Teys received a technical foul for the attention he showed Perth’s development player Lochlan Cummings, as he drove to the basket.
As Cummings drove towards the basket, for his first points in the NBL, Teys delivered a front on bump similar to what you see during an AFL game.
The treatment wasn’t well received as Wildcats guard Dexter Kernich-Drew ran from the corner to shove Teys to the ground.
From there it was game on as an all in brawl erupted.
Pushing and shoving turned in to a brawl that included every player on the court and a few from the respective benches.
As referees and coaches tried their best to separate the players, some tussles fell to the floor as players continued to wrestle.
Wildcats players Lucas Walker and Kernich-Drew along with 36ers’ Teys and Shannon Shorter were ejected from the game.
But Wright said he thought the incident could have been avoided.
“I knew it was going to come to that,” he said.
“If we don’t do a better job at protecting the obvious things, it’s going to be like that every game and someone’s going to get hurt.
“There were a lot of plays that ref should have cleaned that up earlier and it probably wouldn’t get to that point.” So, Sunday’s game becomes massive in terms of the season. Both teams are on 15 wins and in a fight, along with Melbourne (16) and New Zealand (14), for a top- two finish.
If Perth can repeat the dose on Sunday, the 36ers will fall a win behind them, with only three left to play.
And Wright said that should be enough to drive his team.
“There should be a lot of fire regardless, with two teams trying to position themselves for the play-offs; two teams that compete extremely hard,” Wright said.
“Young players try to find reasons to play harder. If you can find reasons to play hard cause you’re getting played a lot of money to play basketball in front of 15,000 people I don’t know what else should inspire you.”
The 36ers need to find something. After winning seven games on the trot, they have dropped the past two. Brisbane scored 95 points against them last week and Perth 111 on Friday.
And Wright admitted they need to get their defence right.
“You can’t give up 100 points and expect to win,” Wright said.
“It’s a focus thing for us. It’s not a technical thing. It’s not as if they forgot to play defence.”
— with AAP
