A fired-up Kristian Doolittle proved bad news for the Tasmania JackJumpers, inspiring the Perth Wildcats to a bounce-back win after Thursday\u2019s loss to South East Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Having only scored a combined 17 points in his last three games, Doolittle exploded on Sunday at MyState Bank Arena, to finish with 30 points and 6 rebounds and lead the Wildcats to the 94-85 victory. <\/p>\n
Doolittle’s performance was a key reason why the JackJumpers weren\u2019t able to make it three straight wins and to move closer to replacing Perth in fifth spot on the ladder.<\/p>\n
Despite that, Tasmania’s coach Scott Roth was full of praise for Doolittle.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always thought this and I think he’s the best player in the league hands down, because he plays at every level, and plays multiple positions and he’s big and strong,” Roth said in Sunday’s post-game press conference.<\/p>\n
“He’s having a fantastic a year, an MVP level year, and he’s really fun to watch and he does it all level. <\/p>\n
“He can defend and he can move his feet and switch onto guys, he can handle the ball and he’s smart and can shoot the ball, and he’s got the middy. <\/p>\n
“He’s really a smart and physically dominant player at his size, and he was a difference maker throughout this entire game. He’s been having a fantastic season and I love the way he plays, and he’s probably my favourite non-JackJumper.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Before Sunday’s game, Doolittle’s last three matches had seen him average just 5.7 points a game, while only shooting 6\/25 across the home losses to Sydney and South East Melbourne, and a thumping road win in Brisbane.<\/p>\n
That meant he arrived in Hobart on Sunday in a foul mood, both because of his recent struggles and the way the Wildcats lost to the Phoenix, in what is their last game at RAC Arena until January 16.<\/p>\n
He might be hard on himself when he’s not performing, but there’s a reason for that.<\/p>\n
“I just call it not giving myself a pass and I don\u2019t make excuses for things not going right, and I always look for a way of something I can do better,” Doolittle said.<\/p>\n
“Tonight I was just playing pissed off and with a point to prove after having the feeling of letting my team down, which fuelled me in my mindset of whenever I was doing my workouts and getting up extra shots, I just wanted to be someone who can be counted on.”<\/p>\n
Perth returns to the hardwood on Sunday, December 28 in Adelaide, tipping off at 7.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fired-up Kristian Doolittle proved bad news for the Tasmania JackJumpers, inspiring the Perth Wildcats to a bounce-back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-364734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}