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THEY were the best team all year and the best club all year so no-one should be surprised they also were the best on the one day it mattered the most.

Perth started the season winning the Blitz, then closed it with a 93-59 blitz over Adelaide in Game 3 of what had been a memorable Championship Series.

Six NBL Championships and the club stands alone (it already did at five, by the way) as by far and away the No.1 basketball organisation in Australia.

Truthfully now, where else in Australia could tickets go on sale at 8pm on a Friday for a basketball game at the ludicrous tip-off time of 11am on a Sunday - and sell out more than 13,000 seats?

Could that happen in Sydney? Melbourne?

You know the answer.

It sure wouldn't in Wollongong, Townsville or Cairns - well, not anymore in Cairns - although maybe Auckland if the Breakers were up and about and maybe Adelaide, but only since Friday night renewed the faithful in the city of churches.

And they have smaller venues.

It says everything anyone east of the border needs to know about how well owner Jack Bendat has his club functioning, how efficiently CEO Nick Marvin has it running and how all coach Trevor Gleeson has to take care of is what occurs inside the rectangle.

Could Gleeson have done what Joey Wright did and raise a club from the doldrums of the bomb shelter into a Grand Final?

We'll never know because Perth is not a club familair with failure. The worst it ever did was finish second-last and that was in 1986 before the season which launched the "28-in-a-row" finals run, unparallelled in national league sport of any description in Australia.

That was not intended to demean what Gleeson achieved, a season after being out of the NBL, just as his counterpart Wright also was inactive at this level.

It just reflects that the Wildcats as an organisation will leave nothing to chance in terms of providing the resources and opportunities for its on-court team.

What happens from there is in the lap of the Basketball Gods. (Would it be seven titles now if Damian Martin wasn't injured last year, for example?)

Game 3 went a little more along the lines I feared it might, where that extra motivation at home, in front of such a loyal Red Army and with the sting of successive Grand Final defeats still fresh, all added up to an equation Adelaide wasn't going to be able to solve.

In case you are playing at home, the final answers to that equation were 34, 2-1 and 6.

IT was mighty tough selecting a Larry Sengstock Medallist.

Lucky enough to be one of the panellists - Larry was busy trying to arrange a reunion of his five championship teams but no-one knows where St Kilda, Brisbane or North Melbourne are these days - I can tell you I voted for a different best player in each of the three games, with the eventual winner - the Real Deal - Jermaine "Dollar" Beal a constant.

After G1, you had to know James Ennis was ahead and after G2, I am sure Adam Gibson and Gary Ervin were polling.

In G3, there were a few candidates for votes - Shawn Redhage, Damian Martin, Anthony Petrie, Greg Hire, Beal - but 3, 2, 1 is all we could give.

I loved the work Greg "Gun for" Hire did across the series, especially in the closer.

When the 36ers mustered what would be their last real run at it in the third quarter, he connected on a huge three-pointer with 5:15 left and in that second, everyone knew with 100 per cent surety the Dr John Raschke Trophy was coming back to Perth.

He didn't stop there though, working hard for an offensive rebound on Perth's next possession which Beal sent swishing through for the triple which proved the last nail in Adelaide's coffin.

Hire's offensive rebounding in G1 - he had as many as Adelaide in the first half alone - also was significant.

But it didn't match Ennis' game, and Beal also was big in that one. Beal went for 17 second-half points in the G2 loss and almost dragged the Wildcats to a sweep.

I realise no justification is necessary but it goes to show that in the end, this is a team game and a team win.

How about Damo's D on Gary Ervin in G3? He kept the 36ers' import star of G2 to four points on 1-of-8 shooting, while also scoring 14 points, grabbing six boards, with two assists, a steal and a block.

Damo even did a chase-down out-of-court save reminiscent of the season's Play of the Year in Adelaide on March 14, except this one didn't start with a soaring shot rejection.

But there will be no appeal - Beal is the winner and deservedly so.

NICE to see NBL legend, championship-winner, 1985 MVP and Hall of Famer Ray Borner on hand to present the Larry Sengstock Medal.

Hope to see Larry at the 2014 PreSeason Blitz to present the Ray Borner Medal.

COMING from dead last - and the club was inching closer to death than few outside may ever know - Adelaide's effort to make it all the way to the Championship Series was a credit to chairman Daryl Simmons, SOS consortium stalwart Paul Finlay, GM Dean Parker, coach Joey Wright and the personnel who believed with such faith a miracle was possible.

Unfortunately for Adelaide, it ran into a juggernaut on a mission.

Just as in 2013 when New Zealand and Perth were the outstanding two clubs and the Breakers were just that bit better, this year Perth and Adelaide filled those same two slots.

The result was the same, though it was a credit to the 36ers to make it a three-game series, the loud-and-proud 8,127 fans at G2 now feeling renewed and invigorated by what lies on the horizon.

Of course, there are no guarantees in pro sport. Since Cairns Taipans contested the 2011 Championship for example, they haven't been back to the post-season.

While Adelaide DID bounce back from the heartbreak of 1985's Grand Final loss to Brisbane - another one of Larry's Championships - to win it all in 1986, that scenario isn't always the case.

But to come from last and set a new club home record at The Fortress of 16-1 - even beating the 1986 Invincibles' 15-1 benchmark - is testament to how far the 36ers came in a very short time.

They just ran into a club that is the benchmark for basketball in Australia.