Perth Lynx planned to play Bendigo Spirit or Townsville Fire in WNBL finals and that’s what will now happen

Perth Lynx coach Ryan Petrik has declared his team couldn’t be any more prepared to face Bendigo Spirit in the WNBL semifinals, saying all of his planning for the season was based around the likelihood of having to beat them to win a championship. The Lynx will host Bendigo at Perth High Performance Centre on Saturday in the first game of a best-of-three series. It will be the seventh time Perth and Bendigo have played, given they clashed twice during the pre-season in Kalgoorlie and have had four matches during the regular season. Petrik has often spoken about how he built a game plan designed to combat Bendigo and townsville, and now he will find out if all of his work has been worth it. “From day one, we have said we thought Bendigo and Townsville would be two of the finalists so that’s why we have put so much time into those two teams,” he said. “We’ve played Bendigo six times this year - two during the pre-season and four during the regular season. If we’re not prepared for them now, we never will be. “It does feel a bit weird, though. We have been repeatedly playing Townsville in finals over the last few years. We don’t hate Townsville, but there’s a real rivalry. “It feels like we know Bendigo more as friends. The two clubs and two coaching staffs really get along. I’ve known Kennedy Kereama for 15 years.” The Lynx will be hoping their decision to sign 211cm Chinese star Han Xu and 198cm American Yemijah Morris comes up trumps as the physicality increases during finals. Perth have struggled to win the physical battle in previous finals series and Petrik said they were determined that wouldn’t be the case this season. “We got beaten up in the finals last year so we went out of our way to get two elite bigs,” he said. “We were initially chasing bigs to deal with Lauren Cox at Townsville and Marianna Tolo at Bendigo. But they’re both out so we have had to change slightly. “But we’ve got two rim protectors. So when Han gets tired, in comes Morris. We are constantly rolling out a jumbo line-up that is still mobile. Having two elite shot blockers than can guard the rim means teams have to go and find another way to score. So if our guards can defend the three-point line and our bigs deal with the rim, then we are tough to beat.”