Bryce Cotton has reminded the NBL why he is still the best player in the competition, returning from a rib injury to put up 33 points in 32 minutes and lead the Perth Wildcats to a 97-84 home win against the South East Melbourne Phoenix.
Cotton, who won the fourth of his MVP awards just last season, has missed the last five games after suffering a dislodged rib in the opening minutes of the October 19 loss in Auckland to the New Zealand Breakers.
The 32-year-old US star returned at RAC Arena on Friday night but the Wildcats were up against a rejuvenated Phoenix team under new coach Josh King who had been making their mark defensively over the past seven matches.
South East Melbourne started on fire with the first 10 points to quieten the home crowd, and were still leading 26-18 by the end of the first period, but everything changed in the second.
The Wildcats put up 40 points with Cotton scoring 16 to give them a 58-48 lead by the main break on 51 per cent field goal shooting.
Perth's American trio Cotton, Dylan Windler and Kristian Doolittle combined for 44 of those 58 points in the first half too.
The 'Cats outscored the Phoenix 18 points to 12 in the third quarter before scoring the first five of the fourth period.
The lead blew out to 22 and even with the Phoenix getting back within 10, Perth still won by 13 to improve to 6-6 on the season.
On top of Cotton's 33 points, five rebounds and four assists with 13-of-14 at the foul line, Winder hit 4-of-5 from deep for 20 points while Doolittle ended up with 12 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
Wildcats coach John Rillie was especially happy with the response to the slow start.
"Any time you get a win like that on your home floor it's good," he said.
"The way that we clawed back and had that 12-point (third) quarter defensively, that really set the tone for the rest of the game I felt."
South East Melbourne now sit at 5-8 heading into the FIBA break with Matt Hurt outstanding again with 27 points and 10 rebounds.
Nathan Sobey added 17 points while Next Star Malique Lewis was another shining light with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists.
Phoenix coach King admitted his team didn't play as well as they have been, but taking 20 fewer free-throw attempts to Perth certainly didn't help.
"I'll just state facts because I don't want to get fined, I believe the foul count was 12-1 in the second quarter and I've never seen anything like that," he said.
"Then the final foul count - this is a fact - was 25-10. Oh man, so it's tough to play on the road against a really good team with really good players, that's a fact, and Perth is that.
"It's a tough place to play but combined with those facts I stated, it gets really difficult."
