Snakes' tough start to road double in Adelaide

Despite an impressive all-round battling performance from Keanu Pinder against his former team, the CQUniversity Cairns Taipans fell short of the Adelaide 36ers at Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Friday night.

It was the start of a road double for the Taipans in Round 16 of the NBL and without the presence inside of impressive big man Stephen Zimmerman, it was always going to be a challenge away from home in a game featuring two teams desperate for a win to break their losing runs.

The Taipans made a couple of runs at different points in the game including Pinder helping them out to a five-point lead in the second period, and then another run sparked by Tahjere McCall in the third quarter.

However, Adelaide scored 18 points in-a-row during the fourth quarter to end up winning the game 83-57.

You couldn't fault the Taipans' effort in most areas on the night. They outrebounded Adelaide 53-46 including pulling down 21 offensive boards to 12 for 17 second chance points.

It was just a rough shooting night, going 21/75 from the floor at 28 per cent and 4/25 at 16 per cent from deep.

Keanu Pinder did all he could finishing with 15 points and 13 rebounds while Tahjere McCall also had 14 points, six boards and five assists, and Bul Kuol 12 points.

Nate Jawai tried to provide a good target inside without Zimmerman and had 10 points and seven rebounds with Majok Deng contributing two points and two rebounds, Brayden Inger two points, and Kouat Noi two points and four boards.

Scott Machado might not have scored for the first time in his 78-game NBL career, but did have six assists, five rebounds and two steals for the Taipans.

The loss was hard for coach Adam Forde to take on a night where he felt nothing went right for his Taipans.

"My brother hits me up all the time, saying things like staying positive and that you can learn lessons from this. We have been doing a lot of learning this year," he said.

"Every game since we got out of the COVID break feels like we have been trying to atone for our previous game, this is probably no different. The guys are disappointed and we have to reflect and learn from it, try and grow."

McCall defended his coach and said everyone in the team would need to be accountable.

"No one aside from Keanu played good basketball, we've got to be better," he said.

"The coach has done so much to try and put us in a position to make the game easier and we're just not doing it right now."

Adelaide captain Mitch McCarron took Adelaide's loss to heart last Saturday against the New Zealand Breakers even helping to clean up the bleachers post-match, and he took out that frustration on the floor this Friday night.

He scored 11 points in the first quarter alone on his way to 21 for the match to go with 10 rebounds, three assists and three steals on shooting 4/7 from three-point territory.

Tad Dufelmeier opened the scoring against his former team and then Sunday Dech gave the 36ers a 4-0 edge. Another former Taipan Mitch McCarron drained a three and it was 7-2, but the Taipans responded well from an Adam Forde timeout.

Tahjere McCall and Bul Kuol scored out of it for Cairns and that led to a furious standing CJ Bruton timeout for Adaleide. It worked because McCarron came out of it to knock down two more three balls in succession.

He would end up with 11 points for the quarter and by the end of one it was Adelaide holding a 20-16 advantage.

The Taipans opened the second period well thanks to Pinder taking it to the rack and then Kuol hitting his second triple of the game, and suddenly the visitors had the lead. Pinder helped blow that out to a five-point lead but then the 36ers got hot.

It started with last season's Next Star in Cairns Mojave King lighting up for back-to-back three balls as part of a 9-0 run. Adelaide then went on another run 11 straight points beginning with a triple from Daniel Johnson for his first bucket of the game.

That had Adelaide up 11 but Pinder was feeling it on his old home floor and went on an individual run of seven straight points to help the Taipans only trail by five at half-time largely through better effort on the boards for 26 rebounds to Adelaide's 17 including 11 at the offensive end to four.

Three-pointers to Cam Bairstow and McCarron to open the second half saw the Sixers pull out to a nine-point lead again but the Taipans reacted well firstly by dumping it inside to Nate Jawai, and then with McCall's energy for eight of the game's next 10 points.

However, again the 36ers pulled away with the last nine points of the quarter including five of them to captain McCarron to be up 61-51 by three quarter-time.

It didn’t take long into the fourth quarter for the 36ers to put the game to bed either. A four-point play from Dech pushed the lead out to 14 and all up the Sixers blew it wide apart with 18 straight points to turn a 10-point advantage into a lead of 28.

Cairns scored the last bucket of the game through development player Brayden Inger for his first NBL points but the Adelaide crowd went home happy with their team's 26-point win.

The Taipans now head to Brisbane before returning home to take on the Bullets in a Sunshine Stoush on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 16

CQUNIVERSITY CAIRNS TAIPANS 57 (Pinder 15, McCall 14, Kuol 12) 

ADELAIDE 36ERS 83 (McCarron 21, Bairstow 12, Dufelmeier 10)

BOX SCORE