在海裡飛翔的魚

The plan for the Perth Wildcats Thursday night hit-and-run mission in Adelaide is pretty simple according to head coach Scott Fisher.

“We’re looking at it as a dress rehearsal for next week,” Fisher said. “We’ll go out and play Wildcats basketball, and try to correct some of the things we didn’t do so well at the (Virgin Blue Pre-Season) Blitz, get a win, come back.”

The Cats swept the Asian teams they played in the pre-season, but only made it to the semi-finals of the Blitz.

“I like everything we’ve done in the pre-season, but probably the three games against Toyota might have been better if they were against NBL teams, in terms of giving us an awareness of the level of power we’re going to be playing against – I think we got jumped in the blitz early because of that.

“So it’s good to get some more court-time against NBL opponents in a full-length game, because the Blitz games were all or nothing, whereas there’s ebbs and flows that mentally you have to be aware of in a full-length game. There’s better court management by coaches required and more concentration for longer periods of time.”

Fisher is also looking to continued improvement from some of his more senior players.

“I think we’d like to see a bit more from Darren Brooks, who played OK at the Blitz, Adam Caporn was only OK at the Blitz, and both those guys realise that we need more form them, and they both believe that they can provide more, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll do tonight.

“(Tony) Ronaldson hasn’t been shooting a high percentage, so we’d like to see him hit a few more shots, but other than that, I really just want to see a bit more cohesion offensively, and probably a bit more proactivity defensively.”

Adelaide shapes as the ideal opponent for the Cats’ final hitout before the season kicks off, as the 36ers came to Perth with just three rounds of the regular season remaining and gave the Cats a lesson, 116-100.

“We played them when they seemed to be down on their luck, they were struggling on the road, they didn’t have Brett Maher, and they came into our place and Willie Farley tears us apart.

“They’ve got Farley, they’ve got Maher, they’ve got Nick Horvath who’s apparently playing the best basketball of his life so he’s tough, (former Wildcat Adrian) Majstrovich, we know that he’s a solid contributor, Brad Hill’s another year older and is a big-time scorer, David Cooper’s given us problems before with his rebounding and shotblocks.

“There’s plenty of talent there, and we’re not expecting a particularly easy game.

“Really looking forward to it, actually.”