Taipans battle hard out west

The CQUniversity Cairns Taipans fought valiantly but trying to come from behind against the Perth Wildcats at RAC Arena is never an easy task and the Snakes found that out on Friday night.

The Taipans will take some heart from the way they were able to stick with the Wildcats for the final 35 minutes of the game in Perth on Friday as the regular season resumed after the NBL Cup in Melbourne the previous month.

The problem for the Taipans was that they did fall 16-4 behind midway through the opening quarter. They only ended up losing the game by 18 points so for the last three quarters they were able to keep pace, but not really make inroads on that deficit.

The Wildcats have won the last two championships, have just come back from winning the NBL Cup and now return to the top of the table as a result of Friday night's 93-75 victory against Cairns.

That all means that to win the Taipans had to have a lot go their way and that sort of start in the first quarter wasn’t what the doctor ordered. 

The positive is they stemmed the tide and did reasonably well for the last three quarters which will give them some heart to take with them into another road game in Sydney against a hot Kings outfit on Sunday.

The Taipans didn’t have a great shooting night in the end going at 39 per cent from the field and 24 per cent from deep, and even just 63 per cent at the foul line, but you couldn’t question the fact they continued to fight it out to the final buzzer.

Scott Machado ended up top-scoring with 16 points to go with four rebounds while hitting 3/6 from downtown with Kouat Noi finishing with 14 points, nine boards, three assists and two steals after a particularly active opening half.

Nate Jawai built some momentum through the second half for 13 points and five rebounds while Jordan Ngatai added 10 points, Mirko Djeric seven points, and Cam Oliver six points, six rebounds and three blocks.

George Blagojevic also had four points, two rebounds and two assists, Jarrod Kenny three points and four boards, and Tad Dufelmeier two points.

Taipans coach Mike Kelly didn’t necessarily fault the effort of his group, but trying to play catch up in Perth is never going to be an easy way to success.

"I think they got some looks early and knocked them down, and got to feeling pretty good about themselves," Kelly said. 

"I think we were trying to stick to the game plan and our guys did that, and they played through a barrage of shots. When you're getting scored on, the double injury there is offensive rebounds and they got five of them in the first quarter and they were shooting the ball well. 

"Perth will do that if you don’t attack them physically to stop them from getting to the O-boards. They did a better job than us to get that 12-point buffer and we never got it back. We just kind of traded there with them the rest of the game. We tried to do some things to change it up and they kept feeling good."

It was a rough opening for the Taipans with the Wildcats catching fire early to lead 16-4, but the injection of Jordan Ngatai and Nate Jawai helped to steady the Taipans. Scott Machado added a three-point play with the deficit 12 at quarter-time.

Machado knocked down a three to start the second quarter before Noi and Djeric both added and-one plays. Jarrod Kenny then came on to knock one down from deep and Noi kept scoring too on his way to 12 points for the half, but still the Snakes were down 15 at the break.

The Taipans built some momentum to start the second half too on the back of a motivated Machado. They did get back to within 13 points but Perth responded with a 10-0 run to push it back out to a 23-point margin.

Ngatai and Machado hit threes just before three quarter-time, and then Jawai pulled off a nifty move to steal the ball and score on the buzzer.

Jawai kept that momentum going for three more buckets in the last quarter and the Taipans kept fighting, but could never bridge the gap and went down to the Wildcats by 18.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 10

CQUNIVERSITY CAIRNS TAIPANS 75 (Machado 16, Noi 14, Jawai 13)

PERTH WILDCATS 93 (Cotton 28, Mooney 21, Blanchfield 17) 

BOX SCORE