Basketball On The Internet.

SHELVE (even if only temporarily) every thing you dislike about Chris Goulding if you're not a diehard Melbourne NBL fan and accept this. As far as Australia's greatest ever shooters go, he is in every such conversation, even though he never had the Olympic opportunities contemporaries Patty Mills, Andrew Gaze, Ian Davies and Eddie Palubinskas enjoyed.

All four of those men led the overall scoring in at least one Olympic Games but truth is, not one of them could claim to have shot the ball better than Goulding still can.

What he did last night as he eviscerated Perth in Game 1 of their semi final series was nothing shy of shooting genius - the result of a superior technique honed to razor sharpness by countless, endless hours in the gym for practice, practice and more practice.

We talking about practice?

You bet we are because practice makes perfect and what Goulding did to the Wildcats - and not for the first time - was about as perfect a singlehanded destruction of an opponent as we have seen in a playoff game.

His 10 3-point makes in his 41-point haul has only previously been done by Wildcats coach John Rillie - ironically also against Perth but for Townsville - and Bryce Cotton, again, ironically on this occasion the man assigned to try slow him down in Melbourne's ultimate 105-93 hammering.

But there was no slowing Goulding down. Racing off the court during the second quarter in a private rage, there was no hint of what was to come.

Having opened the game with a 3-point swish inside the first 10 seconds, he picked up an early foul in the second period, then fouls two and three at the 3:21 mark and then immediately at 3:18 respectively.

Livid, he went to the changerooms to settle his rage, returning to join his teammates after settling down.

In the meantime, Ian Clark had come off the United bench and was in his best mood offensively, eventually finishing with 22 points at 58 per cent and three assists in just under 24 minutes.

Melbourne mentor Dean Vickerman opened the third quarter with Clark in place of Goulding, inserting him at 6:17 with the score 59-58, and here was a man on a finely-tuned, fully focused mission.

Rillie, who was helpless as he watched Goulding torch his team for 46 points during the regular season, earnt himself a technical foul and at 5:43, Goulding stuck the free throw penalty. 

And that's how easily it can happen folks. At 4:37 it was a Goulding three. Drawing defensive heat, he dished an assist to Rob Loe for another 3-pointer.

At 3:21, it was a Goulding step-back three, at 2:56 a fadeaway triple, at 2:01 another one, before Ben Henshall fouled him on a 3-point attempt inside the final minute of the third, and he nailed all three free throws.

Melbourne's lead out to 12, Cotton trimmed it by a regulation basket to close the third and when Goulding collected his fourth foul, Vickerman was forced to sub him out as the Wildcats rally started.

With Keanu Pinder playing some of his best ball of the night, Perth trimmed the deficit to three before Goulding returned at 5:38 in the fourth, drilling a 3-pointer 21 seconds later.

A dunk from a mostly irrelevant Dylan Windler and a Henshall three had the Wildcats alive at 85-86 down before three consecutive threeballs by Goulding delivered the last rites.

There was another 3-pointer, free throws, you name it. Goulding was unstoppable and, yet again, Rillie had no answer, no strategy, no idea how to stall the avalanche.

Goulding's 41 in 24 minutes was delivered at 60 per cent, his 10-of-17 threes at 58, Jack White paired 13 points with 10 boards - and shot an airball free throw for which he long will be remembered - and Shea Ili made Cotton work for his 22 points.

The fact Cotton scored them at 67 per cent (8-of-12) spoke volumes for how differently Melbourne and Perth execute to free their key shooters.

Perth simply does not. How Cotton can take only 12 shots while Pinder (24) and Kristian Doolittle (22) can take 46 shots between them is a conundrum Rillie must solve before tomorrow's Game 2 in Perth.

Potentially Cotton's last game at RAC Arena, at least for the foreseeable future, expect him to emulate Goulding and just get it done on his own, going down fighting. The question is will it be enough to force a decider?

NBL SEMI FINALS (2v3) MELBOURNE UNITED v PERTH WILDCATS

Game 1 - Melbourne United 105 (Goulding 41, Clark 22, White 13, Lee 10; White 10 rebs; Dellavedova 9 assts) d Perth Wildcats 93 (Pinder 24, Cotton, Doolittle 22; Pinder 11 rebs; Cotton 6 assts) at John Cain Arena. Crowd: 7,473. Melbourne leads best-of-three series 1-0

Game 2 - Saturday, March 1, RAC Arena, Perth, 8pm AEDT

Game 3 (if required) - Tuesday, March 4, John Cain Arena, Melbourne, 7:30pm AEDT