Fever's defensive lockdown job in the opening half was remarkable and when they finished the first half on a 9-1 run with the Vixens lost for answers in attack, the game was all but over.

Fever are now guaranteed of playing finals and can finish top beating the Giants in Sydney next week. The Vixens must beat the Sunshine Coast Lightning at home to make it too.

Fever coach Stacey Marinkovich was delighted her team saved their best performance for when it mattered most.

"I think it's our best defence we've had all season and I would say it was our best attack. It's hard to take away just the work rate that we had all over the court," Marinkovich said.

"They were patient, we were controlled and it just showed the transfer from training. I was feeling really good about this game with the girls and it was our best preparation."

The Vixens battled in the second half but Fever did enough to win well on the back of another 62 goals from 66 attempts to Jhaniele Fowler.

Nat Medhurst provided 39 assists while the defensive duo of Courtney Bruce and Stacey Francis were superb.

Mwai Kumwenda put up 32 goals for the Vixens before leaving with a leg injury late in the third quarter. Tegan Philip finished with 20 from 25 attempts.

Fever shot out of the blocks with the opening three goals and claimed the game's first bonus point winning the first quarter 19-14 but Melbourne did make a run midway through the second period.

A 6-2 run with all the goals coming from Kumwenda had the Vixens back within three.

But Fever's defensive pressure an intensity went up another level with the Vixens throwing the ball away and unable to get into shooting positions.

The result was an 11-goal half-time lead for Fever but the Vixens turned the tide with Emily Mannix coming on to make life tough for Fowler.

Philip was more active too and they won the quarter 20-16 to only trail by seven.

She tried to lift the Vixens through the final stanza despite the absence of Kumwenda.

They did close to within six before Fever scored eight of the game's last 10 goals.

Simone McKinnis gave credit to the defensive pressure of Fever, but the Vixens coach expected her team to handle it better.

"I don't think we were in the contest from the word go to be honest," she said.

"Fever played exceptionally well from start to finish and didn't allow us to get into it but I was obviously really disappointed with the way that we started the game and struggled from there on in really."

Australian Associated Press