Wildcats star owns his mistake, then saves Perth

Kristian Doolittle blamed himself when the Perth Wildcats let their lead slip on Saturday night. By the end of it, he had more than made amends.

Stuck on the bench in foul trouble through the third quarter, Doolittle returned to pour in 16 points across the fourth quarter and overtime, and put his body on the line for the play that swung the game, as Perth outlasted the Illawarra Hawks at RAC Arena.

He knew what was at stake. It was the Wildcats’ last home game for a month, and already their 11th at RAC Arena in just 13 matches this NBL27 season.

So when a technical foul just before half-time was followed by his fourth foul with three minutes left in the third, Doolittle knew he had let his team down.

He went to the bench with Perth up six, and by the time he returned in the fourth, the Hawks had taken the lead.

Back on the floor, he had a fine line to walk: avoid the fifth foul that eventually caught up with Hawks pair Will Hickey and Makur Maker, without holding back.

“I shouldn’t have gotten the tech and I understand that I let my frustration get the best of me in the moment, and rather than just moving on to the next play, I had some choice things to say,” Doolittle said.

“I kind of let my team down in that situation by being off the floor for that long, and then seeing us squandering the lead that we worked hard to get.

“I had to be disciplined and not pick up my fifth foul, but not be hesitant either because sometimes when people have four fouls, they tend to not be themselves or try to play not to foul rather than still playing within yourself and being confident.

“I feel like as a team we were able to have a lot of different contributors tonight too, and that’s the reason why we won.”

Doolittle made some massive offensive plays after his return and finished with 29 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists.

But perhaps his biggest play had nothing to do with scoring. With just over a minute left, he dived on a loose ball at mid-court and beat Hickey to it.

In the battle for possession that followed, Hickey was whistled for a foul, so Doolittle not only won the ball back for Perth but sent Hickey from the game.

He then cut the margin to two, and almost a minute later tied it up with a pull-up three.

“I feel like it’s not even necessarily something that you think about, either you do it or you don’t and effort is an instinct thing,” Doolittle said.

“Understanding the position where we’re at in the season, there’s no time to second guess or to look back and say, I wish I did it.

“I almost caused a turnover by making a bad pass so not wanting to let my team down, I just dove for the ball.

“We always talk about being the first one on the floor and then being able to get fouled just because of my effort to put them in a tough situation.”

Perth now travels to Cairns on Friday to face the Taipans from 7.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.