Forde "masterstroke" brings lofty expectations

Are the Cairns Taipans sizing up their post-season charge? The Snakes overcame a ladder-leading Melbourne United side in Round 9 and Lanard Copeland believes the club’s mentality should be, if they can beat Melbourne, they can beat everyone.

Head coach Adam Forde introduced Jonah Antonio and Josh Roberts into the starting lineup against United to great effect, and put up 115 points en route to a win over the competition’s number one defence.

“If you can beat the number one team in the league – 10-2 they were with the best defence in the league – if you can beat these guys the mentality should be ‘I can beat everybody’,” Copeland said on NBL Overtime.

“For you to score 115 points on the number one defence in the league is big.

“I’m looking forward to Cairns playing really good basketball the rest of the year.”

Josh Roberts starred in his first career NBL start and finished the clash with 22 points, while import pair Tahjere McCall and Patrick Miller also passed the 20-point threshold in the victory.

Liam Santamaria has labelled the decision for Forde to switch up his starting lineup as “genius”.

“That was an absolute masterstroke from him. He didn’t just use the momentum, he said ‘forget who thinks they should start or who has been starting, these are the guys that got us back in the game on Friday night, we’re going to roll you out as the starters against the top team in the league at John Cain Arena in front of a massive crowd on Sunday afternoon primetime TV’,” Santamaria said.

“I think that’s the best coaching move of the year so far.

“Remember the Taipans last year under Adam Forde? They were like the rat pack; they were young and fast and athletic and the bench was always up and they were around each other all the time.

“They haven’t really been that this year and it’s about finding that identity, and they found a lot of that in that win over Melbourne.”

Cairns wlll open Round 10 against Sydney on Thursday night at 7:30pm AEDT.