Perth coach Scott Morrison hailed the toughness of import Vic Law as he helped the Wildcats snap a three-game losing skid close to the end of their NBL odyssey.
The 89-78 win over Tasmania JackJumpers in Launceston on Monday, was just Perth's second in their last six games and it lifted them above Sydney into third.
They can look forward to returning to Perth soon, after playing most of the season interstate because of border restrictions in WA.
"It was a good team win to finish off this two-month odyssey," Perth coach Scott Morrison said.
Law was in doubt for the game right up to the start after injuring an ankle in the Wildcats' last match.
Coming off the bench on Monday, Law injected some much needed spark after Perth trailed 10-1 and took ten attempts and four-and-a-half minutes to nail their first field goal.
Perth trailed by a double digit margin in the first half for the tenth straight game, but Law finished with 19 points and a game-high 13 rebounds in just under 28 minutes.
"We weren't sure if he could go, I didn't put him in the starting line-up because when I had to put the starting line-up in we still didn't know,' Morrison said.
"I give him respect for sucking it up and playing a tough game, he had a double-double and without him we probably wouldn't have won the game."
Law and Perth's other star import, Bryce Cotton (20 points), scored almost as many points as the entire JackJumpers team in the two middle quarters, when the Wildcats made their decisive surge.
Cotton and Law got good offensive support from Luke Travers (16 points) and Matt Hodgson (15), though Morrison confirmed the latter had hurt a calf late in the game, but he hoped it was nothing serious.
"I thought the guys gave one of their better efforts of the last couple weeks, especially in the last 35 minutes," Morrison said.
"A few little mental errors here and there but overall I thought we competed pretty well."
Missing guard Mitch Norton, Perth out-rebounded Tasmania 48-30 and outscored them 48-29 across the two middle quarters to lead by as much as 19.
While the JackJumpers slashed the deficit to six with just under three minutes left after successive three-pointers from Josh Adams, Cotton hit a trey to effectively halt the home team's revival.
"This could have been a 25-point game very quickly, at one point it was getting ugly," JackJumpers' coach Scott Roth said.
"Our guys showed a tremendous amount of grit and passion to keep fighting.
"We have a lot of work to do, our defence has been very porous the last three or four games, we need to get some of that straightened out."
Jack McVeigh, in his 100th NBL game, top-scored for Tasmania with 16, followed by Adams and Mikyle Mcintosh, both 15.
