The Perth Wildcats ground out their first NBL win in four attempts to ease some of the pressure on coach Scott Fisher while heaping more on the lowly Wollongong Hawks.

After three successive losses, the Wildcats went back to basics, strangling the Hawks offence to win 92-69.

While Peter Crawford's double-double - featuring 12 points and 11 rebounds - and Shaun Redhage (18 points) were serviceable, the output of new import Gerald Brown (seven points, four rebounds) will again cause Fisher some headaches.

As for Hawks coach Eric Cooks, he will be wondering where his points are going to come from other than Cameron Tragardh (23 points) and Kavossy Franklin (15 points), who had very little support.

With five successive defeats, Cooks might have to resort to the measures Fisher went to this week, calling in a psychologist to exorcise the Wildcats' increasing mental demons.

After a tight first quarter, which the Hawks edged by one, the second was a battle of the boards with both sides seemingly losing the ability to score simultaneously.

A period of almost three minutes without a basket from either side epitomised both wayward offences, and the Hawks were able to score just four points in almost ten minutes of term two.

That should have allowed the Wildcats to open up a comfortable margin, but they scored only 16 points from 15 attempts themselves to lead by just four at the half.

Paul Rogers and Redhage went back-to-back inside the first minute of the second half and the Wildcats gradually pulled away to win their first game since the two sides last met in round six.

Crawford was influential at either end, contributing five assists to his points and boards, and Ben Hunt's late three point blitz took the margin out to 23.

But Brown's struggles since replacing Rashad Phillips continued - and were mirrored by the Hawks' Puerto Rican product Angelo Reyes who could only manage four points in 15 minutes on court.

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