Adelaide fire early to grab win in Cairns

In their annual Blackout fixture, the Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans have fallen to the Adelaide 36ers, 75-99 on Sunday afternoon at the Cairns Convention Centre.

Swapping their orange strips for black, the Taipans hosted their 10th annual Blackout game for IFYS Foster Care. Both suiting up for their fourth game in quick succession – eight days for Cairns, and nine for Adelaide – it was a Sunday afternoon battle of endurance in the tropics.

Struggling to find the bottom of the basket early on, the Taipans allowed Adelaide to build a lead with a Tanner Groves triple their only points across the opening minutes.

As the 36ers struggled to miss – hitting eight of their first nine shots, and five of them threes – Adelaide reached 23 points in under five minutes of action, with Cairns calling a quick timeout and swapping out four of their starters to stop the flow of points.

In opposite form to their visitors, the Taipans were only able to make two field goals – both triples by Groves – with the 36ers hitting another three straight shots before a Dejan Vasiljevic heat check from the logo ended the streak.

Reaching 38 points in only 10 minutes of court time – 21 off the back of Vasiljevic’s work from behind the arc – Adelaide held a commanding lead when the fixture reached the second quarter, with Kendrick Davis picking up from where his teammate left off.

Focusing on their work on the paint, the 36ers continued to push the pace, however were matched with a Cairns lineup looking to close the gap to their visitors.

Led by Rob Edwards, the Taipans tried to close the gap, however were only able to close it by three points across the second quarter whilst Adelaide drew foul after foul to continue ticking their own score over.

Entering the second half, the see-sawing affair continued with neither team able to alter the margin by more than two buckets as Vasiljevic continued to light up from deep to hit his eighth triple of the evening.

However, as the term approached it’s end the locals mounted a 10-2 run to reduce the margin to under 20 points, before Adelaide replied with their own run to close out the quarter and rebuild their lead to 24 points.

Despite the 36ers looking likely to reach triple digits after their strong first quarter, the scoring dried up for both sides as the contest entered its final term as shots struggled to drop at both ends of the court.

Utilising the trio of AK Gak, Alex Higgins-Titsha and Groves, the Taipans continued to reply to Adelaide’s attempts to extend their lead, with the visitors only able to outscore Cairns in the opening quarter and by a single point in the third.

Whilst Vasiljevic jacked up a series of deep threes to try and break the record of 10 triples in a game – going one of six in the final three minutes – Higgins-Titsha provided a series of quick buckets to reduce the margin before the final buzzer sounded.

Leading the scoring charge with 23 points – including three triples – Tanner Groves fell a single rebound shy of a double-double, along with an assist and steal.

Orchestrating the bench’s efforts, AK Gak put up 12 points along with 10 rebounds – four of them offensive – to earn himself a double-double, with the athletic forward also providing two assists across the contest.

Both providing 11 points across the afternoon, Taran Armstrong also ended with four boards and five assists, with Rob Edwards providing two assists and a rebound.

“It’s probably been a little bit of a story of ours at times where we put together three quarters or two quarters of great basketball, and tonight outside that first quarter, we were in that game,” explained Taipans guard Kyle Adnam.

“There’s no excuse to start a game that way. It didn’t feel like the energy was flat during warm-ups or anything but obviously allowing DJ to get hot and making errors on our own terms – that’s a learning curve for us.”

“It’s disappointing when the fan base again continues to show up, and we had the Blackout jerseys with the donations and the auctions – which are fantastic – and it goes to a great cause, but we do it off the back of that type of performance,” said Taipans Head Coach Adam Forde.

“I look at someone like Alex, and there’s a dude who’s a 24-year-old DP, and there’s a level of hunger with him that hasn’t had an opportunity and he’s absolutely cashing in on it.”

The Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans will now have a chance to rest, with their next fixture on Thursday night back at the Cairns Convention Centre. They’ll host the Brisbane Bullets for their Pride Round game from 6:30pm – tickets available HERE!