Bryce Cotton returned from a nasty rib injury in a way only the four-time MVP could with 33 points for the Perth Wildcats on Friday night and the only way he told coach John Rillie he wanted to come back was to be thrown right in the deep end.

Nothing Cotton has ever done has been short of 100 per cent commitment and intensity, so he was always going to make it back from his dislodged rib injury as quickly as possible, and likely showing no effects.

After suffering the injury back on October 19 in New Zealand, Cotton was left virtually bedridden for two weeks but has gradually built himself back up to being ready to return against the South East Melbourne Phoenix at RAC Arena on Friday night.

Not only did he return, but he starred in the 97-84 win with 33 points in 32 minutes on the back of shooting 4/9 from three-point range and 13/14 at the foul line.

He scored 16 of those points in a 40-point second quarter from the Wildcats and like everything he's done in his career in Perth, he was never going to ease his way back and let coach John Rillie know that.

"Me and JR had a talk and I told him based off when I started to have some practices that I was going to see how I felt, and if I felt I was good enough to play then he had to throw me in the fire with no minutes restrictions," Cotton said.

"If I'm ready, I'm ready and we have that trust with each other, and he let me rock out and if I was going to be out there, there was going to be no hesitating."

Even going back to Cotton's college career at Providence and he became renowned for having a single focus on basketball, and everything else either had to take a backseat or be put off completely.

That mindset of pushing himself to the limit took him to the NBA and now ever since arriving in Perth, has seen him become of the NBL's best ever players with four MVP's and three championships to show for it.

However, when his 236th game ended in the opening minutes in New Zealand with the rib injury and he could barely even get out of bed for almost two weeks, he was always going to make his mark upon return.

What the work Cotton had to put in to get back and then the pain he still had to put to one side to play as well as he did meant he couldn’t be more grateful to get back playing.

"It felt good to just be back out there. It's been a month and it's felt like an eternity, but seeing how well the guys have played these past few weeks that I've been out was great to know that we still have that fight in us," he said.

"It just felt so good to be out there on the floor. For me I live, sleep and breathe basketball, and being out those four weeks all I have is just my thoughts especially those first couple of weeks when I was basically bedridden.

"My gratitude is at an all-time high just being out there on the floor, and playing well is a bonus but I'm super happy just to be back out there."

Cotton is the first to admit that he's not a good watcher of games that he wished he was able to play in, but he also looked at the positives of the five games he was sidelined for.

The Wildcats did well to win three of those and a big reason for that was the youthful backcourt of Ben Henshall and Elijah Pepper who helped to pick up the slack left by Cotton's absence.

Cotton was happy to see the game from a different perspective and help out where he could, or when asked.

"I'm not a talkative guy by nature, but any time they had questions or things like that I gave them whatever advice I felt they needed," Cotton said.

"It was good to be able to see the game from a different perspective and also just kind of watching what's going through other player's minds.

"When you're playing with them you aren’t focusing on other people too much, but I was able to get into the younger guy's heads to see what they were thinking so when they did have some questions I think I was pretty useful for them."

Chris Pike

Cotton asked to be thrown to the fire