The Capitals dropped game one of their semi-final series in a 91-77 loss to the Perth Lynx at the Bendat Basketball Centre on Thursday night.

Now the series heads to the Tuggeranong Basketball Stadium on Sunday. The Capitals must win to stay alive in the best-of-three series, while a Lynx win would send Perth to the grand final.

Canberra will be sweating on the fitness of young gun Melbourne, who sat out most of the fourth quarter after she suffered a cork to her left leg late in the game.

Britt Smart scored a team-high 18 points for the Capitals but concedes Canberra were "stagnant", conceding just five turnovers but struggling to stop a Perth outfit shooting 56 per cent from the field.

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"It's all going to be about who recovers well. We're going to take our home crowd energy [into game two] for sure," Smart said on Fox Sports' post-game coverage.

"Perth had a great game, I think some of it was just things we can do on our end, just a few tweaks, a few little adjustments, I think we can really bounce back.

"For us, Perth were able to take us out of our flow. We were a bit stagnant, maybe a bit slow with how the ball moved or how we moved on offence. I think we needed a bit more speed as far as cutting hard, you always cut hard whether you're going to get the ball or not, or setting screens hard.

"Just little things that are in our control, I think that's what [coach Paul Goriss] is going to focus on, what we can do to make ourselves better and compete."

The Capitals entered the clash reeling in the wake of one of the biggest losses in club history - a 55-point thrashing at the hands of the Melbourne Boomers, which came days after a 31-point loss to Adelaide.

It was clear from the outset Canberra were up for the fight despite the heavy travel toll faced by Goriss' squad in recent weeks, locked at 23-23 after one quarter.

But the Capitals were left to rue a slow second quarter before Perth finished strong, with Sami Whitcomb posting a game-high 21 points and 11 rebounds.

Capitals officials are expecting a full house of about 1300 fans in Tuggeranong on Sunday. Game three will be played in Perth should it be required in the best-of-three series.

The Boomers already have one foot in the door of a grand final appearance after thrashing the Adelaide Lightning 95-64 in their first semi-final in Melbourne on Thursday night.

Lindsay Allen posted a game-high 24 points for the top-seeded Boomers, who overcame a half-time deficit and soon dominated the fourth quarter to the tune of 33-5.

Game two of that series will be played in Adelaide on Saturday night.

AT A GLANCE

WNBL semi-final game one: PERTH LYNX 91 (Sami Whitcomb 21, Marina Mabrey 19, Darcee Garbin 16) bt CANBERRA CAPITALS 77 (Britt Smart 18, Kelsey Griffin 15, Tahlia Tupaea 15) at Bendat Basketball Centre. Crowd: 879.

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