John Rillie has been there before being proud of his team and feeling hard done by in a critical Playoffs game and while happy with his Perth Wildcats fight against the Sydney Kings, he knows honourable losses don't soothe anything.
The Wildcats had no choice but to accept their loss in Game 3 of last season's Playoffs to Melbourne United despite having good reason to feel hard done by with some calls that didn’t go their way late.
Rillie wasn’t thinking about that, but he did want to have his team as prepared as possible for how their series against the Kings was going to be officiated only to have his call unreturned on the public holiday Monday for the eastern states this week.
Then when he saw a hooking call going against his big man Jo Lual-Acuil Jr on Wednesday night at Qudos Bank Arena when that was one of the things he was seeking clarity on, and did well to not self combust.
His frustration was still evident post-match following the Wildcats' one-point loss in heartbreaking fashion to the Kings when Kristian Doolittle's attempted game winner didn’t fall after he had 31 points including 27 in a dominant second half.
"Where there's a level of disappointment is that we've all watched the playoffs, right, and each game gets reffed a little differently," Rillie said.
"I tried to reach out to the league on Monday and I couldn’t get a return call, I'm trying to being a professional here right, and I wanted to understand and I kid you not, they called JLA for a hooking foul right.
"If that's a foul, there has to be that consistency throughout the game and that wasn’t there, and that's all I want to know is how we're going to be officiated so that I understand."
Rillie also raised a rhetorical question over the 12 fouls that Kendric Davis drew for Sydney and the five that Doolittle drew for Perth when you could argue they both put themselves in similar positions to create contact.
"I know we put pressure on referees, but how many fouls did Kendric draw? And how many Doolittle?"
There was a lot to like for Rillie about what the Wildcats did including not being taken out of their game by Sydney's defensive pressure and at least until just before half-time, doing a good job denying Davis too many good looks.
All their key players had good games too including Doolittle, Lual-Acuil Jr (19 points, 12 rebounds), David Duke Jr (20 points, eight assists) and Dylan Windler (17 points, four assists).
The 'Cats were in control most of the first half but conceded the last eight points to go into half-time down four. And even though they had 20 offensive rebounds to nine for the game, it was some key ones they gave up to Sydney that he'll be losing sleep over.
"The way we competed for 40 minutes, I'm very proud of our group with that, but if we want to take the next step I think of moments in the first half with the way we ended both quarters," Rillie said.
"Or Kouat Noi on the offensive glass, seizing those opportunities in these type of games, that's when you can really put your imprint on it, but when you play the way we did, there's just moments that can rear its heads in games like that.
"We're a confident group and we know who we are, and we're OK with that, and it looks ugly in moment, but we fight through and we persevere, and when we play good and our defence creates some offence for us, we're a really good team."
While the Kings were the hottest team in the NBL to end the regular season, by the time of Game 1 they hadn’t played in almost three weeks while the Wildcats were already finals hardened.
The 'Cats struggled in their Seeding Qualifier against the South East Melbourne Phoenix and in the first half of the Play-In Game against Melbourne United. But they had a brilliant second half at home on Saturday night with 51 points to 24.
That momentum carried into Game 1 against the Kings where the Wildcats raced out to a 10-2 and 18-11 start.
Rillie liked the fact that they had those games under their belts while Sydney were playing for the first time since February 20.
"For us and who our group is, the FIBA window is great to get guys healthy and hopefully get through some of the niggly injuries, but for us at the end of the season and in 2026 we were playing a lot of games," Rillie said.
"So our guys had a nice groove and everything so it took us a couple of games to get back into that rhythm, and we can only worry about ourselves in those situations, and we came out with the hunger and desire to compete against the No. 1 team in the league."
Not only were the Wildcats not able to get a tip-in to fall on the last possession to win the game, one of the players competing at the rim was Windler who had to be helped to the locker room afterwards.
He has been battling plantar fasciitis for the latter part of the season. Rillie is hopeful it was just a flare up of that, and not anything to keep him out of Saturday night's Game 2.
"He's been managing that really well over the last X amount of time," Rillie said.
"In a game like that, someone's going to be really banged up and hopefully it's not too bad and he's done a great job at managing it so hopefully he'll be able to get back for Saturday."