Cairns clinch heart-stopping derby

In their home opener, the Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans took down cross-state rivals the Brisbane Bullets in a nail-biting 83-82 win on Friday night.

Bouncing back six days after their defeat to South East, the side welcomed Andrew Andrews into the lineup a mere 60 hours since the American touched down in the Far North.

After Brisbane kicked off the night by scoring on the first play, Reyne Smith launched straight into action with a quick layup before drawing a foul on a three-point play.

As the Taipan handed the home side an early lead, Sam McDaniel responded with five of his own points to push the Bullets ahead before the guard suffered an ankle injury.

Without McDaniel on the court, the locals fought back with Smith providing a strong defensive presence and the freshly injected Kody Stattmann guiding the offence.

Combining with Admiral Schofield to make three quick triples, Cairns kept a narrow lead whilst Brisbane focused their attacks on the interior through the imposing figures of Tyrell Harrison and Tohi Smith-Milner.

After the home side held a four-point lead at the first break, Casey Prather and Javon Freeman-Liberty returned to the court strongly to tie the contest up before Jack McVeigh introduced himself to his new home crowd.

Nailing a triple to return the lead to Cairns, the side capitalised on growing turnovers from Brisbane with the crowd finding their voice.

Forcing the visitors into repeated timeouts, the Bullets struggled to keep pace with the Taipans, with the pressure evident as the side frantically searched for an answer.

Rekindling their connection from their time as JackJumpers, Marcus Lee and McVeigh formed a formidable duo with the pair repeatedly finding each other on the offensive end and the Bullets struggling to deny them.

Inserting Harrison to control them, Brisbane also utilised the center respond on the scoreboard as the margin quickly reached double digits.

However, the Taipans only held onto a 10-point lead for a mere 10 seconds before Jaylen Adams and Harrison answered with a flurry of buckets.

With the contest narrowed to four points by the main break, McVeigh returned to action the same way that he did for the second quarter – by taking control.

The forward provided a quick bucket for the home side, but the Bullets turned back to Harrison and Smith-Milner who gave the side their first lead since early in the night.

Holding Cairns scoreless for four minutes, Brisbane only jumped ahead by a basket, but the Taipans imports replied from range with Andrew Andrews and Schofield drilling a triple each before the term ended.

As the final quarter began, the hosts returned to the court with a five-point lead and with McVeigh once more leading the lineup back into action as the forward approached a triple-double.

Taking a leaf out of Brisbane’s book who had only hit two triples across the night, the Taipans focused on the interior with it returning the margin to double digits, with Andrews quickly finding his feet as he started to find the bottom of the basket with consistency.

Struggling to find a rhythm from range with only 10% of their triples falling, Brisbane continued to work the ball into the paint with Harrison already reaching 20 points.

After Lee fouled out, the Bullet’s focus on the paint intensified with the visitors quickly chipping away at the margin.

Struggling to stop their visitors with Prather inching them ahead, the Taipans called a timeout to regroup with McVeigh taking the opportunity by nailing a triple to steal the lead back.

After Stattmann worked his way to the line to increase the margin past a basket, Freeman-Liberty replied by reducing it down to a single point with 40 seconds remaining.

However, his attempt to steal the win for the Bullets was sent straight into the crowd by Alex Higgins-Titsha, and a final attempt from the visitors failed to drop with the Taipans walking away with the win.

In their first visits to the Cairns Convention Centre as Taipans, Jack McVeigh and Admiral Schofield both put up 19 points, however the Australian fell a single rebound and assist shy of a triple-double, whilst the American pulled down six boards, an assist and a steal.

Scoring 12 of his own points, Marcus Lee also recorded three rebounds, two assists and a block, with Kody Stattmann putting up nine points, six rebounds and two steals.

Taipans Head Coach Adam Forde:

“We had a big week and wanted a response. I didn’t want to wait until it was round four or five. It was disappointing and knowing how great the fan base is and that it was our first home game, and you really want to put an emphasis on defending home court.
“Last week, I thought that Alex had the worst 15 minutes of his playing career and then tonight he was fantastic. He got rebounds, he got deflections, and defensively he was all in the right spots, so that’s one example of someone responding from the criticism last week.
“We’ve got a really good group that are proud to represent this city. I’ve been in stadiums and arenas and people will leave halfway through the fourth quarter just to beat the traffic, and here the traffic is created by everyone leaving a Cairns game. Everybody stays whether you’re up 20, down 20, if you win on the buzzer or if you lose on the buzzer. So especially for these new guys, they really got to experience that Cairns love this team, and that they appreciate if you just go out there and give everything.”

The Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans will now fly south to Sydney to face the Kings on Sunday afternoon, before a rapid turnaround for their next home game on Thursday night. They’ll face the Adelaide 36ers to open Round 3 at 7:30pm – grab your tickets HERE.