Doolittle praised in Windler absence

Perth Wildcats coach John Rillie was nervous about his team showing complacency upon returning home but he needn’t have been concerned with the way Kristian Doolittle allowed them to overcome losing Dylan Windler.

Going back to when the Wildcats lost their last home game for six weeks to the Illawarra Hawks on December 6, the next seven games away from Perth was always likely going to make or break their NBL25 campaign.

Even after wins in Adelaide and Cairns by a combined 46 points, that was still somewhat up in the air when they lost again to the Hawks in Wollongong by 32 points just before Christmas.

It was definitely at make or break point by that stage with the Wildcats still without Doolittle, with Bryce Cotton having just gone scoreless for three quarters and sitting at 10-9 with four more away matches to go.

What the Wildcats have done is find a defensive identity now for the last four games, their offensive rebounding has been important and the result has been four road wins against the 36ers, Breakers, JackJumpers and Bullets.

That had the 'Cats return to RAC Arena for the first time since December 6 having won six of seven road games in between to be knocking on the door of a top two spot, but it also had coach Rillie nervous.

He wanted to make sure his team didn’t think just being at home would take care of everything for them, and to their credit they gave the same effort to beat the 36ers on Friday night 110-103.

That was despite losing Windler to an eye injury and with Cotton only shooting 6/23 from the field, but still ending up with 22 points, seven assists and five rebounds.

It was a lot more than just that which Rillie was impressed by.

"For me as a coach you come into these games after what we just did on the road and there is a moment of holding your breath to see how the team comes out," Rillie said.

"It wasn’t always great basketball, but the energy and the effort from the team was the great thing.

"What I like is that we don’t have to play perfect or feel like we have to play perfect basketball to be successful, and that was tonight.

"I can't speak enough of the two young bigs (David Okwera, Izan Almansa), (Elijah) Pepper had moments, (Ben) Henshall had moments, Michael Harris came in and did his job. These are guys who have opportunities that are very sporadic at times, and they did a great job."

On the back of an outstanding stretch of form during the Wildcats' seven-game road run of which resulted in six wins, Windler started Friday night's return home game with eight early points including a three-pointer.

However, he took an accidental knock to the eye from Adelaide's Jarell Martin late in the first quarter and didn’t return.

He has suffered an eye injury of some description, but Rillie has no more details than that right now.

"He's suffered an eye injury, what the extend of that is I'll let the professionals deal with that and we'll go from there," Rillie said.

"I cannot give you any information on that, it's all fresh to me and he's dealing with that with the professionals. I have nothing that I can share on that."

It was a weird twist of fate that after it was Windler who had stepped up so impressively in the absence of Doolittle with 15.0 points and 6.7 rebounds, that Doolittle had to step up for Windler on Friday night.

Doolittle was still coming off the bench and on a minutes restriction, but was outstanding scoring a career-best 27 points on 11/15 shooting from the field to go with 10 rebounds and three assists.

He was also shifted defensively onto Adelaide's Kendric Davis after he had 21 points in the first half, and helped to limit him to 10 in the second.

Rillie was anything but surprised with what Doolittle produced.

"Tonight you saw the impact offensively that he can have and I think finally people are giving him some credit defensively with his versatility and the way he can keep a multitude of different guys contained," Rillie said.

"He also watched us for five weeks so I'm sure he has a little zest about his way of wanting to join the group again."