Taipans can't quite overcome reigning champs

The CQUniversity Cairns Taipans delivered a spirited fightback in the third quarter at Cairns Convention Centre on Sunday, but ultimately Melbourne United overpowered them for the 89-73 victory.

The Taipans came into the Sunday afternoon battle fresh off Thursday's breakthrough win against the Brisbane Bullets, but the league-leading United was a whole other challenge.

The reigning champions raced to an 11-2 start to the game, but the Snakes were able to work their way back into the contest. Despite still being down 48-35 at the half, they got rolling in the third quarter and heading towards three quarter-time, had drawn level to have all the momentum.

They couldn’t quite keep it going with Melbourne turning up the heat over the last 12 minutes to outscore the Taipans 35 points to 19 the rest of the way to come away from Cairns with the 16-point victory to maintain their place on top of the NBL.

Tahjere McCall top-scored for Cairns with 16 points and six assists with Majok Deng adding 14 points and Keanu Pinder 14 to go with nine rebounds, four monster blocks and three assists.

Stephen Zimmerman battled hard again inside for the Taipans finishing with 11 points and six rebounds while Bul Kuol contributed nine points on 3/3 from three-point range.

Scott Machado had to deal with Matthew Dellavedova and Shea Ili guarding him, but battled for six points, six rebounds and six assists with Mirko Djeric adding three points and two rebounds.

Taipans coach Adam Forde couldn’t fault his team's effort, but acknowledges there are still some areas needing to be tidied up.

"Melbourne did a great job obviously of being the intimidators from the start. Credit to Melbourne, they were relentless and just kept running at every opportunity that we gave them," Forde said.

"We started off slow and they had a 7-0 run and we weathered that one, and they went on another one and weathered that, and then kept chipping back. Then obviously Melbourne got the final run which pretty much wiped us. 

"The main thing that we want to try and be is that team who wants to show up and represent the jersey, and give the community of Cairns something to be proud and supportive of. Then as we go through that learning curve and become better as a team we'll transfer that over to wins."

Melbourne showed they weren’t missing Jo Lual-Acuil early scoring the game's first seven points before an Adam Forde timeout. Cairns responded with a bucket to Majok Deng, but it didn’t slow down United with Matthew Dellavedova and Ariel Hukporti pushing their advantage to 11-2.

It was Stephen Zimmerman who helped get things on track for Cairns with six points but still Melbourne was in control up 23-13 by quarter-time.

Caleb Agada pushed Melbourne's lead out to 12 to open the second quarter and a couple of Chris Goulding triples made the Snakes' job tougher of getting back into it.

Dave Barlow hit from downtown as well to restore an 11-point United lead halfway through the second term, but the Taipans were fighting hard.

Bul Kuol hit a pair of corner threes but Melbourne responded through Shea Ili and Dellavedova to be up 48-35 at the break. It was that shooting that was the major difference with United going 54 per cent from the field opposed to Cairns' 40, and hitting 6/11 from beyond the arc to 4/15 for the Snakes.

The Taipans came out firing to start the second half going on a 10-1 run on the back of three-pointers from Tahjere McCall and Majok Deng to suddenly close within four.

Fast forward and the Snakes went on another 9-3 run including a big finish from Keanu Pinder, three-point play from McCall and free-throws to Deng to tie scores up.

Melbourne responded with the next seven points to still lead 61-57 going into three quarter-time despite a late and-one from McCall.

Jack White extended the Melbourne lead to seven when he ran the length of the floor on a defensive rebound to finish with his left-hand, and convert it to a three-point play. 

That was the steadying moment United needed and while the Taipans kept on fighting, they couldn’t quite close the gap and Melbourne went on to score the 16-point road win.

The Taipans now hit the road next Sunday to play the red hot Sydney Kings.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 13

CQUNIVERSITY CAIRNS TAIPANS 73 (McCall 16, Pinder 14, Zimmerman 11)

MELBOURNE UNITED 89 (Goulding 21, White 13, Hukporti 12, Agada 12) 

BOX SCORE