Are Taipans ladder-leaders' kryptonite?

Have the Cairns Taipans set the blueprint to defeat Melbourne United in NBL24?

The Taipans rounded out their NBL24 in exciting fashion with a dominant victory over the ladder leaders, and Cairns is now responsible for two of Melbourne’s four defeats in the season so far.

The Taipans rallied behind exceptional performances from Sam Mennenga and Patrick Miller in the home victory, which both Mennenga and head coach Adam Forde have hailed as important to the Cairns community following the impact of tropical cyclone Jasper.

Forde, however, has dismissed claims that his side has been built to defeat Melbourne, rather he asserts the Taipans’ playstyle is a good matchup for the near-consensus title favourites.

“It’s not a case of we built this team to beat Melbourne, that would be hopeful thinking,” Forde said post-game. “I think our playing style suits and we’re still a team that has some flaws in some areas, but as a team that can crawl in and defend and attack it against another team who wants to crawl in and defend.

“The cool thing about this young group is when we talk about momentum swings and inconsistency it’s not through lack of effort. Tonight’s an example where we had four rookies contribute a lot of good minutes and a lot of good basketball.”

Melbourne collapsed late in the fourth quarter in a poor run that saw the margin balloon to 17 points.

Forde says he believes Dean Vickerman didn’t change Melbourne’s defensive structure down the stretch in order to provide a teaching moment for his side.

“Melbourne are ethe number one team, they’re killing it at the moment and I felt like at any point they were going to zone, but I understand why they didn’t because they were locking in really well,” Forde said.

“If I’m in Dean’s shoes – and I’m not making assumptions here – they’re trying to say ‘can we weather this storm’, because they could lose a bunch of games from here on out and they’re not losing that top spot.”

“There were moments where Melbourne went on a slight run and we did a great job of coming together in moments where I felt like a month ago we would have broken down and struggled to weather that storm,” Mennenga added.

“But there was no doubt in my mind we were going to win that game in the way we were playing and the way everyone was confident and playing together.”

Cairns used just eight players en route to its victory over United, with usual contributors AK Gak, Lat Mayen and Jonah Antonio all failing to hit the court as Forde turned to his trusted lieutenants who had already performed across the game.

Mennenga was named Foot Locker Player of the Game for his 22 points and 11 rebounds, while Bul Kuol restricted Melbourne star Chris Goulding to just 14 points – nine of which came in a blitz at the end of the third quarter.

The Taipans’ rotation has been anything but smooth-sailing so far this season. Injuries and absences to Taran Armstrong and Tahjere McCall forced changes in the guard rotation earlier this season, while each of Mennenga, Gak and Roberts have found themselves on the outer of Forde’s key group at various stages of the campaign.

“But there are a lot of guys in our team in a similar situation where the extremes of a good game and a bad game are just too wide,” Forde said.

“We don’t have the luxury to gauge if you’re going to turn the corner, so if you come out for a stretch and you’re not ready or engaged, depending on what the defence or what the training session was like, we do have a lot of young guys and it’s a short hook.

"No other team has four rookies who play as many minutes as we do.”

Cairns’ next clash will be on Saturday, January 6 against Tasmania.