Perth Wildcats coach John Rillie rates Bryce Cotton’s record-breaking 59-point explosion against the New Zealand Breakers as the best individual performance he has seen.
Rillie, in his third season in charge of the Wildcats, logged 481 games as a player from 1995-2010.
He lined up alongside teammates of the ilk of Leroy Loggins, Shane Heal, Brett Maher, Mark Davis, Robert Rose and Corey Williams, while matching up regularly on Melbourne Tigers luminary Andrew Gaze.
But the Wildcats boss has never seen anything like what Cotton crafted in Sunday’s 123-112 win.
“The best,” Rillie responded, when asked where the individual masterclass sits all-time.
“He was in a great groove. You could see the flow and momentum in the first quarter.
“When you have an elite shot-maker like that, it’s beautiful to watch.
“That was just music, that was poetry … I just need to admire, watch and let it unfold.”
Cotton cruised past his previous career-best of 45 well before three-quarter-time, then motored past 51, which was the highest individual score of the modern 40-minute era, set by Brisbane import James Batemon against Perth a fortnight ago.
A pair of free throws with 20 seconds to go saw Cotton surpass the long-standing club record of 57 points set by James Crawford in 1987.
Rillie called a time-out with 1.4 seconds on the clock to draw up one last catch-and-shoot play for Cotton but the superstar import’s foot brushed the baseline as he collected the inbound pass.
“Being brutally honest, the only thing I thought about was him getting 60,” Rillie said.
“Selfishly I wanted to be a piece of that.”
The highest-ever score in any 40-minute game is 63 points, set by the late Reg Biddings for Forestville in 1981, while Al Green holds the all-time record with 71 points for West Adelaide in 1984, when games lasted 48 minutes.
Four-time league MVP Cotton was aware he was having the game of his life but deliberately refrained from calculating his running tally.
“I knew I was making a lot of shots but I made a conscious effort to make sure to not know where I was at points wise, because it didn’t matter,” he said.
“I wanted to stay in that zone.
“Any time you start paying attention to (other) stuff, that’s when the zone leaves you.”
Adding injury to record-smashing insult for the Breakers, centres Tacko Fall and Dane Pineau both limped off RAC Arena with knee injuries.
Fall, the 229cm ex-NBA drawcard playing his second NBL game, buckled at the left knee when boxing out in the second quarter, after Pineau sustained a suspected meniscus injury to his right knee in the first term.
NZ will know the extent of the injuries in the coming days.
“I don’t actually know too much,” NZ coach Petteri Koponen said.
“He (Fall) got some kind of hit to his knee – that’s unfortunate.
“Same with Dane. Let’s hope it’s not something serious and not too bad.”
© AAP