Rough night for Taipans in Wollongong

As if the CQUniversity Cairns Taipans needed more motivation heading to Adelaide on Sunday, they got it in Wollongong on Friday night with a rough loss to the Illawarra Hawks.

Spurred on by coach Adam Forde during the week following Monday's loss at home to the New Zealand Breakers, the first quarter provided plenty of encouraging signs for the Snakes and they went into quarter-time with a four-point lead.

However, by early in the second period Forde was forced to hold a standing timeout to implore his players to give him what he was asking.

While the Snakes were down at half-time, the margin was only four points and the game was still up for grabs but it was out to 11 by three quarter-time. 

The Snakes then went scoreless for more than six minutes in the fourth term before adding the eight points and Illawarra claimed the 79-54 victory on their home floor at the WIN Entertainment Centre.

It was a rough loss for the Taipans ahead of Sunday's game in Adelaide with Majok Deng top-scoring with 11 points to go with five rebounds and three blocked shots.

Stephen Zimmerman added eight points and eight rebounds, Scott Machado seven points and four boards, Tahjere McCall seven points, six rebounds and three assists, Keanu Pinder five points and five rebounds, Marshall Nelson four points and two assists, Mirko Djeric three points and four rebounds, and Jordan Ngatai three points.

Taipans coach Adam Forde clearly didn’t get the response he was after with Cairns' 54 points the lowest ever a team has scored against the Hawks.

"You know the old saying, you've only got so many bullets in your revolver, and I feel like I've used them all up this season," Forde said. 

"By that I mean about being aggressive and sending the message out with venom. We're learning and this is the thing I've asked with the guys is how much do we retain the information. 

"What I'm asking is can we stay true no matter the situation to what we are trying to lock in as our home base defence and what we value on the possession on offence, and as a shot. I made it obvious that my struggle was that I felt like we lose that vision a little bit. 

"That's what the timeouts were about to realign ourselves, but we played very too fast and that's not our style of play. We're still learning and I have to be conscious of that too that we've changed a lot of things, and guys are learning the particular way I want things done."

A Jordan Ngatai triple gave Cairns an early lead but Illawarra were hot in the opening minutes from beyond the arc themselves to go up 15-11. Scott Machado then turned the momentum in favour of the Snakes starting with an and-one finish.

The full-court pressure was troubling the Hawks and led to a Bul Kuol bucket after a steal, and then the Snakes made the most of getting to the foul line to lead 21-17 by quarter-time.

The Taipans responded well to an Adam Forde stand up timeout after the Hawks went on an 8-2 run to start the second quarter. Tahjere McCall finished at the basket and then put in a three to beat the shot clock.

When Mirko Djeric nailed one from beyond the arc the Snakes still led by four, but the Hawks dominated the last three minutes of the half to go into half-time leading 41-37.

The third quarter wasn’t quite anything to write home about with the Taipans managing to put up just the nine points to be trailing by 11 at three quarter-time.

Things didn’t get better in the fourth quarter with the Hawks scoring the opening 12 points and the Taipans not managing to score for more than six minutes. Marshall Nelson got a couple of late buckets as did Bul Kuol and Keanu Pinder, but it was of little consolation.

The Taipans remain on the road with a short turnaround for a second game in Round 12 against the Adelaide 36ers on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 12

CQUNIVERSITY CAIRNS TAIPANS 54 (Deng 11, Zimmerman 8, Machado 7, McCall 7) 

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 79 (Reath 16, Cleveland 15, Rathan-Mayes 9)

BOX SCORE