R14 Preview: Cairns Taipans v Adelaide 36ers

When: 7.30pm (AEST), Wednesday 14 April 

Where: Cairns Pop-Up Arena

Broadcast: ESPN; Sky Sports NZ; SBS On Demand; Twitch

The last time
Cairns 79 (Oliver 19, Machado 17, Djeric 13) d Adelaide 65 (Johnson 21, McVeigh 15, Dech 11) – Round 11, Cairns Pop-Up Arena

While regular starters Majok Deng and Kouat Noi weren’t out there having gone down with long-term injury, those Taipans that did play enjoyed the comforts of home once more to control the game virtually from start to finish and end up beating the 36ers by 14 points.

The Snakes broke the game open with 13 consecutive points either side of quarter-time and virtually held a double-figure lead the rest of the way with Cam Oliver closing the door on the contest with 10 points and two big blocks in the fourth quarter alone.

It was a morale booster for the Taipans too who had won just two of their 10 games since last playing at home with Oliver especially enjoying being back in front of the Orange Army delivering 19 points and 10 rebounds on 7/10 shooting from the floor and 3/5 from deep.

Scott Machado was also terrific with 17 points and six assists while Mirko Djeric added 13 points, Jarrod Kenny nine, Mojave King eight and Fabijan Krslovic six.

The Sixers lost a fifth game in-a-row but they had arrived in Cairns significantly shorthanded without Isaac Humphries, Josh Giddey and Keanu Pinder.

They struggled as a result but you couldn’t fault the efforts of Daniel Johnson who delivered another 21 points and six rebounds. Jack McVeigh made the most of his starting role with 15 points while Sunday Dech fought hard too for 11 points, seven rebounds and five assists. 

But the 36ers simply needed more from imports Tony Crocker and Brandon Paul who combined for 14 points, 12 rebounds and six assists on 4/15 shooting from the field and 2/8 from three-point range.

The now

The 36ers arrive in Cairns fresh off a morale-boosting home win over the Perth Wildcats while the Taipans have continued to be competitive despite not quite getting over the line since that last win over the Sixers.

Go back over Easter and both in Melbourne on Good Friday and then at home to United on Easter Sunday, and you can't fault the effort levels for the most part of what the Cairns Taipans delivered against the league-leading championship favourites.

Then you go back to Sunday against the Illawarra Hawks in Wollongong and despite the continued absence of Kouat Noi and Majok Deng, and then losing Scott Machado by half-time, and the Taipans delivered another performance where you couldn’t help but admire their effort.

But after the consecutive 10-point losses to Melbourne and then Sunday's two-point defeat to Illawarra, the Taipans need to turn good performances into a win because that 5-17 record isn’t nice viewing for anybody.

The 36ers have now won consecutive matches for the first time since they won three straight way back at the end of January. They had lost five in-a-row to close the NBL Cup and then on the road to South East Melbourne, Perth and Cairns, but they have enjoyed their home coming the past two weeks.

They snapped their losing streak by beating the Illawarra Hawks 84-72 and then a week later they also snapped the nine-game winning run of the Perth Wildcats with an 83-68 victory. Highlighting what a feat that was is that it's the only game the 'Cats have lost in their past 11 attempts, and their only loss since March 5.

The Sixers won both those games against the Hawks and Wildcats minus Isaac Humphries and Tony Crocker as well, but with Daniel Johnson and Josh Giddey outstanding leading the way with support from Brandon Paul, Jack McVeigh, Sunday Dech, Keanu Pinder and Daniel Dillon, they have put together some of their best basketball of the season and will look to continue that on the road in Cairns on Wednesday night.

The stats

- The Taipans have beaten the Sixers in four of their last five meetings, but the Snakes have lost eight of their previous nine matches in #NBL21. The only win in that stretch was three weeks ago at home to Adelaide.

- Daniel Johnson sure enjoys playing in Cairns and overall coming up against the Taipans. Last season he scored his career high of 38 points against the Snakes while in the two games this season he is averaging 25.5 points. That makes it the best average of his career against the Taipans with five of his highest eight scoring games coming against them.

- DJ also arrives in Cairns in impressive form having averaged 23.5 points over the last four games while shooting the three ball at 45 per cent in that stretch and having hit 20 consecutive free-throws.

- Opposed to that, Cam Oliver also enjoys playing for the Taipans against the 36ers. His career-high of 31 points came against the Sixers in Round 19 of last season while he's also coming off 27 points, 12 rebounds and a new career-high five assists on Sunday in Wollongong against the Illawarra Hawks.

The key men

Cam Oliver – He is coming off his best all-round performance of the season in Wollongong against the Hawks and he had that look in his eye all game that he wasn’t going to accept another loss for the Taipans. Now ultimately they did lose by two points, but he couldn’t have done much more and he is going to have to come out with the same mindset on Wednesday night for the Snakes to get over the line especially if Scott Machado doesn’t get up to play. Keanu Pinder will throw good energy against him and there'll be times he'll be matched up with Daniel Johnson, but he just needs to be aggressive and attack the basket, and then let his outside game come to him naturally, and provided he is in a positive mindset, there's every chance he can lead the Taipans to the win.

Josh Giddey – That elusive triple-double is seemingly on the verge of happening and as he prepares to play in Cairns for the first time and with the chance the Taipans will be missing Scott Machado, the stars might be aligning. Over his past five games, the Next Star who has been rated as high as No. 9 in NBA Draft projections has been averaging 14.8 points, 10.6 assists and 8.4 rebounds. His shooting is on the rise to and he's shooting the three ball at 46 per cent over that period. While Taipans guard Machado leads the league in assists at 7.4 a game, Giddey is averaging double his number over the past five rounds and he'll look to put on a show in Cairns on Wednesday night.

The quotes

Taipans coach Mike Kelly certainly isn’t one for mind games so when he says that he'll be waiting to see and hear how Machado pulls up on Wednesday before finding out if he'll be available to play against the 36ers that night, then you can take him for his word.

"Scott's got a pretty heavy cork above his knee so we rested him today and we'll give him until game day to see if he'll be good to go," Kelly said. 

"It's one of those things where you hope it recovers quickly but he got a pretty good knock on it and we won't know until tomorrow. I'm hopeful that the treatment goes well and that in the morning it's feeling even better, but I don't have a timeline on when we'll make the decision. But he has at least given himself every chance of getting himself up to play."

All in all, Kelly is happy to see so many members of his playing squad stepping up when their number is called and he expects that to continue.

"The biggest positive take away is that some guys who haven’t played a lot, played really well and kind of played with reckless abandon which is what I love to see," Kelly said.

"They played smart as well and started to execute where in the first half especially some of it was Illawarra's defence but some of it was us slowly walking through plays and not executive the way we need to. It was good to see us do that a little better and get in positions to score. Definitely the effort throughout the whole game was something we can hang our hats on."

Kelly wants to help his playing group find that winning formula of giving that great effort to play hard, but also executing well enough on both ends of the floor to see that turn into winning performances at the same time. He'd like nothing more than to see that start happening come Wednesday night at home to the Adelaide 36ers.

"I think we have to take the positive of some guys getting opportunities and taking full advantage of that. That's great, but we have to learn that it's not good enough just to play hard," Kelly said.

"We need to execute and if we do that from the start, we give ourselves a chance to be a good basketball team. So it's simply about being better with those little simple things, and bringing that same energy. I think that's a winning recipe."

Looking back to Saturday night and Adelaide coach Conner Henry saw a lot to like in his team's win over the Perth Wildcats, and he hopes they can continue that momentum on with them now in Cairns on Wednesday.

"It was a really good win for us. The last two have been good and we're just trying to stick to a process these last two or three weeks to try and get out of the losing streak," Henry said.

"So we've gone back to the basics and have asked for a level of understanding and commitment from the guys, and they've met it. They have really worked hard on the days that we've had time to train and we keep talking about that. 

"We want to get the ball through hands, trust the process, understand the scout and have a good time doing it. I think the group has settled into that message and it has resulted in a couple of wins."

While in the bigger picture at 9-13 finals are still within reach for the 36ers in #NBL21, but Henry will ensure his team doesn’t looking any further ahead than the job that awaits in Cairns on Wednesday night.

"We have 14 games left and we'd love to continue to build this thing and get closer to .500 and see what happens. But we're not looking past anybody and we're just focusing on our work, recovering, getting into training and preparing for Cairns," Henry said.

"We just want to continue to build confidence and we know Ice will be back soon so we can add another major piece to us. It's nice that we're winning and we're just going to stick with what we are doing, head up to Cairns and hopefully the pleasing results can continue."