Just hours after the Kings lost to New Zealand on Friday night, the Wildcats shrugged off a lacklustre start against the South East Melbourne Phoenix to score a thumping 97-71 win at RAC Arena.

Both the Kings and Cats have 15 wins apiece, although Sydney have a game in hand.

It wasn't just Perth that started slowly against South East Melbourne. They led 44-33 at halftime, but only after they dropped 10 points in the three minutes just before the main break.

It was the first game played in Perth since the weekend before Christmas and the basketball-starved WA crowd could have been excused for thinking neither team had been on a court since then.

It seemed like the blowing of the referee's whistle was the only consistent aspect at either end of the court.

Just four minutes in the second quarter both teams had collected their allowed five fouls for the term; actually Perth had six, including five in just 53 seconds.

Bryce Cotton, who became just the eighth American to play 100 NBL games for the Wildcats on Friday night, kept the scoreboard ticking over and finished with a game-high 25 points.

Miles Plumlee started in his first game for the Cats and became an immediate fan favourite despite scoring only two points and going 0-4 from the free-throw line.

Majok Majok had his back though and produced an impressive 10-rebound game off the bench.

No one in Phoenix colours could get going in attack until late. They scored just 10 points in the first term at 20 per cent and John Roberson had seven of those.

New import Devondrick Walker got into the swing of things after halftime to finish with 16 points.

Australian Associated Press