Corey Webster celebrated his 250th NBL outing in style on Monday night, dropping a match-winning three-point bomb to give his side an unlikely victory over Melbourne United.
The Cats trailed Melbourne by five points with less than 10 seconds remaining in the game and little hope of recording a third consecutive win.
Winning at home has been tough for Perth, who was seconds off having a 3-5 record at RAC Arena.
But when the final buzzer sounded, Webster was mobbed by his new teammates, who were celebrating a 90-89 victory.
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A play just seconds earlier by Todd Blanchfield made the win possible.
He dropped a dagger of his own with just seven seconds remaining; a Shae Ili foul sending the Cat to the free-throw line.
Blanchfield missed the attempt at a bonus points, but a rare Perth offensive board was knocked back to Webster, who did the rest.
The win ended a seven-game Melbourne winning streak over Perth in the West.
Cotton still the king
Bryce Cotton is still the star of the show.
The three-times MVP is back to leading NBL scoring and added another 29 on Monday night.
He was just one point away from reaching 30 points in four of his past six outings.
In fairness, he did have 18 of those 29 points in the first half and was kept relatively quiet by Shae Ili after half-time.
Seven of Cotton’s points did come in the last term though, including a three-pointer in the last minute.
Luke Travers was the Cat that stepped up.
The rising star added nine points, four rebounds and three assists in the final 10 minutes.
He was supposed to be playing in front of Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Mike Gansey, who missed his flight from the US and will have to wait until Friday when Perth hosts New Zealand to see Travers play live.
Webster finished with 20 points for the third consecutive outing, having averaged just nine over his first nine games in Perth colours.
Playing on Cats’ weakness
For most of Monday night’s game, Melbourne did everything right.
Teams are filling their boots against Perth in the paint this season.
The Wildcats are giving up a massive 44 points per game from the paint and that has risen to 48.4 points per game in the past nine outings.
Putting that in perspective, the Cats are scoring just 32.8 points per game in this manner over those nine games.
On Monday night, the story was no different.
United owned the key in offense, scoring 42 points this way, Perth managing only 30 in this manner.
Melbourne was the latest side to make the most of a glaring advantage in height over Perth.
The Wildcats have not won the rebound battle once this season.
On Monday, Melbourne had 14 more rebounds, resulting in 15 second-chance points.
Goulding was again terrific with 20 points and Xavier Rathan-Mayes scored 11 in the final term to finish with 22.
Rayjon Tucker, Marcus Lee and Isaac Humphries each pulled in eight rebounds.
