Perth Wildcats John Rillie on how he plans to manage his team’s two-week break before semifinal series

Perth Wildcats will have to wait almost two weeks before their blockbuster semifinal series against Melbourne United, a side that swept them in the regular season. The Wildcats lived on the edge in their seeding win over South East Melbourne Phoenix on Tuesday night. Keanu Pinder sat on four personal fouls as he led a barnstorming final quarter at Perth High Performance Centre that shot the Wildcats into the main body of the playoffs. But a FIBA break means they won’t play again until at least February 26, after the international window ends. They faced a similar break last year before they won at home against Tasmania, but went on to lose the series to the eventual champions. Australia’s Boomers play two games in Victoria against Indonesia and Thailand next weekend. Ben Henshall — who scored 11 points to go with six rebounds and four assists on Tuesday — has represented Australia before, as has Elijah Pepper, while Tai Webster and Hyrum Harris could play for New Zealand and Spain used Next Star Izan Almanza in their most recent window. Coach John Rillie believes their preparation will need a tweak from last season because the roster has changed, but that they can use it as a blueprint. “You take into consideration what you did last year. This is subtlety a different group, so you have to be mindful of who your group is and how you manage that time through that,” he said. “We may have some guys involved in the FIBA window with their various countries ... so once we get a full understanding of what that looks like (we can plan). “We will approach it pretty similar to last year, we came out against Tassie, had a good home performance. We are going to mindful of how we treat it through there because we lost three times to Melbourne so we better give them the respect they deserve.” Wildcats big Keanu Pinder played the game of his life to kickstart a fourth-quarter heater where they tore past South East Melbourne Phoenix to win by 21 points. But he was playing on the edge, copping his fourth foul just two minutes into the second half in a game where players risked being punished for making any contact at all. The foul trouble was the latest hurdle the Wildcats have had to face this season, including injury, late-game deficits and being bumped off RAC Arena by Kylie Minogue ahead of her concert at the weekend. “Over the last month we have been down fourth-quarter double figures, we have had guys foul trouble, injuries throughout the course of the regular season,” Rillie said. The Perth coach said Pinder, Kristian Doolittle and Dylan Windler adjusted the way they were defending in the second half. “Foul discipline is a huge part of the game and we weren’t disciplined in the first half. Second half, we had a better presence earlier on in the possessions so we weren’t scrambling as much,” Rillie said. “I haven’t watched it and you get caught up in the emotion of it sometimes, but when you put yourself at risk because you are subtlety out of position, you are putting yourself at risk. We managed that better in the second half.” the way they’re supposed to work out.