Injured Taipans fall to Kings in Sydney

Missing key pieces, the Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans have been bested by the Sydney Kings 99-73 on Sunday afternoon at Qudos Bank Arena.

Their third defeat of the season to even their wins and losses, Cairns now sit sixth on the ladder as they wrap up their fourth round of the season.

Moving into the game, both teams faced changes with their point guards. Still missing Taran Armstrong, Kyle Adnam moved out of the starting lineup to make way for Jonah Antonio, with Sydney’s star import Jaylen Adams also sitting the game out with a back injury.

Opening with a lot of energy to rebounds from their loss earlier in the week, the Kings working inside through Xavier Cooks and Alex Toohey to open the game strongly – forcing an early timeout from Taipans.

Looking to the bench for a spark, Coach Forde inserted Dillon Stith who scored his first points of his season - putting Cairns on the board.

Moving onto the court himself, Adnam provided his own energy in the game and tried to claw the lead back. Only missing one shot in the first quarter, the guard put up a quick eight points to restrict Sydney’s lead.

Struggling to miss their shots and outrebounding the Taipans when they did miss, the Kings continued to increase their lead - entering the first break with a 10-point lead whilst shooting at 66%.

Flipping the script, Cairns finally found their shots in the second quarter with Sam Waardenburg and Pedro Bradshaw leading the charge.

Building their defensive intensity to match their offensive energy, the Taipans were able to slowly reduce the lead, with a deep shot from Waardenburg reducing the lead to three.

With a narrow lead, Sydney put their foot down – rebuilding their lead off the back of Shaun Bruce sinking all five of his attempts from deep.

Continuing to showcase their budding connection, Adnam and AK Gak worked to the basket to attempt to limit the damage, but Bruce was able to continue hitting his shots to rebuild the lead to 14-points at the main break.

After a sluggish start to the second half by both teams, the two sides traded blow for blow with Waardenburg and Bradshaw looking to restrict the flow of points.

Looking to build on their lead, Bruce and Toohey combined to stretch it out, with the Kings’ energy giving them a 19-point lead entering the final term.

Not content with rolling over, Waardenburg continued to push hard as he refused to bow to the lead that had been built out.

However, the Kings struggled to miss their shots – with Cameron Oliver cleaning up their rare misses.

After scoring Cairns’ only points across the opening minutes of the final quarter, Waardenburg checked out of the game – replaced by development player Alex Higgins-Titsha for his NBL debut.

Providing the spark from the bench that the Taipans needed, the guard re-energised the side as they brought the once 30-point lead back – providing blocks on the defensive end and putting up much needed points at the other.

Closing out the game with an offensive rebound and layup, Higgins-Titsha finished his professional debut with four points, four rebounds and four blocks across five minutes on the court – only the third Taipan in history to debut with four blocks.

Finishing his own game just short of a double-double, forward Sam Waardenburg put up 22 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two blocks and one steal.

“From a coaching perspective, if you’re going to take anything from this – this is probably the smack in the mouth that we needed,” explained Taipans Head Coach Adam Forde

“As much as the message has been with the guys that we need to continue with the process, we run a different race from everybody else.

“We need to keep chipping away at the daily grind, because that’s the team that we are.”

“It’s a bit of a bitter sweet moment because of how the game went, but it was also exciting for myself,” said Taipans guard Alex Higgins-Titsha.

“I had a few of my friends, and a huge amount of family in the crowd, so it was really good.”

The Kenfrost Homes Cairns Taipans will now return to Cairns to regroup and will remain hopeful for the return of Taran Armstrong on Saturday night. They’ll host the Illawarra Hawks at 7:00pm at the Cairns Convention Centre – tickets available HERE.