Perth import Shawn Redhage overcame a virus to lead the Wildcats to a tough 90-88 NBL victory over Adelaide at Challenge Stadium.

Redhage was slower than usual to get his game going after missing training the previous day with an illness, but he recovered to lead all scorers with 27 points while Adam Ballinger was the trail blazer for the Sixers with 25.

The Wildcats trailed Adelaide 51-45 at halftime, but opened the second half with a 10-0 scoring run to gain the lead.

Redhage stepped up to the plate with 14 third quarter points - most of them from flawless shooting at the charity stripe - and scores were locked 72-all heading into the last term.

Perth led by as many as four in the last period but it wasn't until Redhage sank two more free throws with 36.7 seconds left on the clock that the Wildcats sealed the win.

It was Perth's second win of the round after belting the Slingers by 37 points in Singapore just three days ago.

They started Saturday night's game strongly, jumping to a nine point lead late in the first term before a five-point run from Ballinger pulled Adelaide back within range.

It was an especially tough loss for Sixers big man Neil Mottram who split his right eye open in the opening 90 seconds after challenging an Alex Loughton dunk.

The knock was close to the fracture he suffered in his nose in their last game against the South Dragons and as a result he only played 14 minutes and did not trouble the scorers.

"The way we attacked the game was pretty good, I thought for the majority of the game we outplayed them but we didn't get the result at the end," said Adelaide coach Phil Smyth.

"They were talking about getting a mask made for (Mottram) but that takes two weeks and when he got hit there it was close to the fracture and it wasn't worth risking him to get hit on the nose again.

"His nose seems to be attracting a lot of elbows at the moment."

Perth coach Scott Fisher said he would like to have seen his team run things more smoothly against an unpredictable team like Adelaide.

"Our shooting percentage was shocking and we did a good job defensively to hold that team to 37 points in a half," he said.

"We talked at half-time how Brett Maher was hurting us and we kept him scoreless in the second half so there were some great things defensively but offensively there was some miscommunication and poor shooting and on the road we don't win that game."

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