South East Melbourne put on an unrelenting defensive masterclass to trounce Perth 111-94 in the NBL seeding qualifier.
But their resounding victory has come at a cost with import Ian Clark suffering a calf injury.
Clark, who scored 16 points off the bench, crash-landed as he was fouled on a drive with 7:28 remaining in the fourth quarter at John Cain Arena on Wednesday night.
On getting up, he favoured his left leg before exiting the contest 12 seconds later.
Nathan Sobey paired 24 points and seven assists, while Owen Foxwell posted 18 points and four steals.
The Phoenix had 28 more shot attempts after swamping the Wildcats 17-8 on the offensive glass, and forcing 17 turnovers while conceding just five.
Kristian Doolittle (22 points) top-scored for Perth, who will contest the play-in game on Saturday against the winner of Thursday's sudden-death play-in qualifier between Melbourne United and Tasmania JackJumpers.
SEM will play the Adelaide 36ers in the semi-finals.
"We wanted to win the game on the defensive side of things," Phoenix coach Josh King said.
"We want to wear teams down and I thought for the most part we did that.
"It was one of our better defensive efforts of the season."
The Wildcats buried six of their first seven three-point attempts, but too many careless cough-ups against SEM's smothering full-court press proved costly.
The Phoenix led 35-29 at quarter-time, before the second term started with a desperate, diving Foxwell forcing yet another Perth turnover, converted into a layup for Glover in the opening seconds.
That set the tone for a horrific quarter from the Wildcats, who were trounced 29-18 to trail 64-47 at half-time.
Powerless to unshackle themselves from the Phoenix's iron-fisted defensive grip, Perth coughed up 11 turnovers for the half.
Doolittle produced the highlight of the third period, blowing past John Brown - recently crowned the league's Best Defensive Player - and throwing down an authoritative dunk on big Jordan Hunter.
But it remained all on SEM's terms, the home side closing the term on a 10-2 run to boost the margin to 86-64 at three-quarter-time.
The gap ballooned to 23 points in the fourth before both camps cleared their benches.
"It was just a good, old-fashioned butt-kicking," Wildcats coach John Rillie admitted.
"They did a great job of keeping the flow of the game the way they wanted it all night long.
"They executed their gameplan beautifully ... I thought Josh King was the MVP of the game."
