Another double-double from Nick Kay, his sixth of the season, wasn’t enough as the Perth Wildcats slumped to a second straight loss in Melbourne on Monday night.
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Following on from their one-point loss to the Sydney Kings on Friday night the Wildcats fell to defending champions Melbourne United 82-65.
After a close first half, the visitors couldn't get anything going on the offensive end of the court in the third quarter, managing six points to Melbourne's 23 in a period that determined the result of the game.
Kay was the Wildcats best, notching up 15 points and 12 rebounds.
He didn't have much support on offence with Bryce Cotton and Mitch Norton the only other players with double-figures, with 11 and 12 respectively.
As a group, the visitors grabbed a solid 45 rebounds but were only able to shoot at a clip of 36 per cent which made it difficult to put points on the board.
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“I think we had patches of effort, which was really good but we can’t wait until we’re 15 down 20 down to show that,” Kay said.
“We’re just going to have to come out the next game and show that consistently through the 40 minutes and if we can do that we’ll be right back there.”
He said there are a couple of little things they need to fix.
“One thing I’m just noticing is 13 assists, 15 turnovers - we’ve got to take care of the ball,” he said.
“That leads to their offensive transition and them getting good shots.”
They also have “got to be relentless defensively”.
“If we can do that it will spur our offence as well,” he said.
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Melbourne’s win sets up a tight race at the top of the NBL ladder with Perth (11-4) just ahead of Melbourne (10-5) and the surging Sydney Kings (9-4), who have risen to second spot on the back of their current four-match unbeaten streak.
The Wildcats next outing is against the Brisbane Bullets on Friday night.
“We’ve got a couple of games ahead of us that are going to be big challenges,” Kay said.
“We’ve had a few challenges before and we’ve responded well. It’s about how we respond to this one now.”
