Cairns defend Summer Shootout lead

The Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans have successfully defended their Summer Shootout lead against the Illawarra Hawks, taking down the ladder leaders 100-94 at home on Thursday night.

Hosting the Hawks for their nominated Shootout game, the Taipans entered the contest with Taran Armstrong a game time decision – with the guard suiting up but remaining on the bench – whilst Illawarra were missing Darius Days for the clash.

Opening the game by sending both starting units into the paint, points across both teams were exclusively scored inside the arc across the first minutes of the game, with the trio of Alex Higgins-Titsha, Tanner Groves and Rob Edwards all contributing early points.

Draining a triple at over four minutes into the contest – the first make from outside the arc by either team – Groves added five points early, with a Higgins-Titsha dunk forcing the Hawks into an early timeout as the locals earnt a 15-8 lead.

With the forward catching fire, the Taipans fed him, as Higgins-Titsha slammed home another dunk followed by a triple to continue building the margin – feeding off their fans to double Illawarra's total, 26-13.

As Cairns more than doubled the Hawk’s efforts on the boards, whilst allowing no turnovers and draining all of free throws across the opening 10 minutes, they were able to carry a 14-point margin as the contest entered its second term.

Focusing on cleaning up their own misses, both lineups were able to pull down more rebounds at the offensive end, with Cairns taking advantage of their second chances to continue building the margin.

Whilst Illawarra struggled to find someone who was able to consistently find the bottom of the basket, the Taipans didn’t suffer the same fate – continuing to pile on the points.

Reaching the main break with every starter hitting a triple, with Higgins-Titsha and Edwards both reaching double digits, Cairns were able to stretch the lead out to 17 points, as they held the Hawks to a low scoring 37 points.

Returning to action by slamming home his third dunk of the night, Higgins-Titsha set the level for his teammates with Pedro Bradshaw following his fellow forward as he looked to outhustle the Hawks on both ends of the court.

Still struggling to find a basket from outside the arc – only sinking five triples by the end of the third term – the Hawks turned to the paint to tick the scoreboard over, with a 27-point quarter helping even the contest.

Sharing the ball around, Illawarra steadily chipped away at the margin – taking advantage of Cairns’ turnovers to reduce the deficit to only seven points as the contest entered its final quarter.

Continuing their strong form as play resumed, the Hawks were able to reduce the gap to four points before Cairns were able to respond.

Feeding off the crowd, the Taipans returned to their starting unit who turned to Sam Waardenburg, with the forward repeatedly driving to the basket for an and-one to keep their scoreboard ticking over.

Finding their touch from distance as the contest approached its end, the Hawks quickly reduced the margin with Todd Blanchfield draining successive triples to reduce the gap to a single point, before another three by Tyler Harvey evened the contest for the first time since the opening minutes.

Pushing themselves ahead with a Waardenburg triple, the two teams traded blow for blow, with Cairns pushing their visitors into bonus early to make the task easier to achieve.

Briefly extending the lead out to nine points, Cairns were unable to break into double digits as the Hawks made a late charge to steal the win, however the Taipans continued to utilise the foul count to easily tick the scoreboard over from the free throw line to extend the lead back to six points at the final buzzer.

Once more leading the scoring with 22 points, Rob Edwards was well supported by his fellow starters, all of whom contributed at least 13 points and four rebounds. The American also contributed three assists, a steal, a block, and ended with an efficiency of 61% from the field.

The forward duo of Sam Waardenburg and Pedro Bradshaw put up 18 and 17 points respectively, whilst also combining for 14 boards, eight assists, three steals and a block, with 10 drawn fouls between them whilst only committing one themselves.

In his fourth career start, Alex Higgins-Titsha fell one point short of his career best to reach 13 points with seven boards and a steal and was joined in the paint by Tanner Groves who put up 15 points, nine rebounds and three dimes.

“The fans keep showing up, and there was a run during the first half where you could really feel the energy from the crowd, but it was important that we didn’t want to get too caught up in the energy and burn out,” explained Taipans Head Coach Adam Forde.

“But it was great for the crowd to get involved – to cheer and have something to go home feeling good.

“Maybe the mindset is that we’re not playing for postseason. But this is still probably going to be a mental hurdle for a lot of these young guys, because we still found ourselves in a bit of foul trouble, we still missed some bunnies at the rim and missed some foul shots, but we’ve gotten over the hurdle now because we’re just playing with a sense of freedom.”

“This has been my first fully professional environment, and it’s been good – it’s been tough, and I think that I’ve learnt a lot and gotten a lot better – but it’s awesome just having this experience,” said Taipans forward Alex Higgins-Titsha.

“Fordey’s taught me to just keep staying with it – even though we had a big losing streak, every practice we go after it and stay with it just stay solid because we’ve just got to keep playing.

“Obviously, as a DP I’ve been lucky to get as many games as I have, but I feel like I’ve shown that I belong, but I’ve just got to keep working and that’s what I try to do in every practice – just work hard and show that I belong.”

The Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans now face the challenge of travelling across to Perth for their Saturday night clash against the Wildcats, before backing it up with a road trip to Auckland. They'll return home for the final Queensland derby of the season on Thursday 6 February – tickets for the final Taipans home game of the 2024-25 campaign are available HERE!