Taipans Put a Hurting on Bullets in Brisbane

No Keanu Pinder, no worries for the Cairns Taipans as they maintained pace for a top two finish in NBL23 by taking full advantage of a disappointing Brisbane Bullets on Thursday night with the 107-81 road win.

The Taipans arrived at Nissan Arena still missing their MVP fancy Pinder and while coming off wins without him at home to Adelaide and away to Illawarra, but this would be their third game in six days.

It didn’t show. While the Bullets had all their contracted players available with Aron Baynes back into the line-up, the Taipans got under their skin early and then got into a flow themselves and put together a commanding all-round performance even with Kerry Williams stepping in as coach for an unwell Adam Forde.

Cairns' aggression going to the basket helped them to 23 free-throw attempts to five in the first half on the way to a 55-37 half-time lead. 

That then blew out further with the Snakes doing as they pleased in the third quarter to lead by as much as 32 and then ending up cruising to the 26-point win.

There was plenty to like in the Cairns performance that improves them to 13-7 in third spot on the back of going 26/35 from the foul line to 11/13 by Brisbane along with collecting 50 rebounds to 31 including 14 at the offensive end to four.

That helped the Snakes to 13 second chance points, 52 points in the paint and 20 points from the 16 turnovers forced on the lacklustre Bullets.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">DJ Hogg that is ????????? as butter ?<br><br>The big man&#39;s got a game-high 2??3?? points!<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/jDD1dCMN0y">pic.twitter.com/jDD1dCMN0y</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1610938927820726272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Sam Waardenburg delivered for Cairns in the absence of Pinder with 24 points and eight rebounds on 7/10 field goal shooting and 9/12 at the free-throw line.

DJ Hogg added 23 points and six rebounds, Ben Ayre 20 points and four assists, Tahjere McCall 16 points, six boards, six assists and five steals, and Bul Kuol 14 points and six assists.

Kerry Williams now has a 26-point win next to his name in his first game as a head coach with Adam Forde ill and able to be there.

"It was just about the guys staying together," Williams said. 

"We spoke about it at the start that we had to stay together and play through everything. It was all about us you know, we had to deal with Fordey not being there and he's our voice. 

"He's our leader so it was great that we were able to have this performance and it just goes to show that our process works. Guys are trusting in what we do and that was pleasing."

After their loss to Melbourne on Sunday, Tyler Johnson talked about his care for the Bullets this season. He backed that up with a tremendous solo performance with a season best 32 points and four assists, but he just didn’t get enough support.

Kody Stattmann played a fourth quarter cameo for 10 points while Jason Cadee had eight points and three assists. Superstars Aron Baynes and Nathan Sobey combined for four points on 2/9 shooting without a trip to the foul line.

Bullets coach Greg Vanderjagt couldn’t hide his understandable disappointment afterwards.

"It was incredibly disappointing. I thought we'd had a good preparation even with some guys in and out practice that impacts that," Vanderjagt said. 

"The most disappointing thing was that we just got outworked. They just played harder than us, we talked about it in the locker room about what the strengths of Cairns are and they are playing good basketball right now. 

"They were undermanned without Keanu and Fordey was crook so the most disappointing thing is just the lack of energy that we brought to the game for the most part."

It was Bul Kuol who got aggressive in the opening stages with six quick points to help Cairns to the 9-2 lead to already force Greg Vanderjagt into a timeout after two minutes.

Jason Cadee hit a three coming out of that timeout and Tyler Johnson hit the floor to add seven points, but the Taipans maintained their edge and forced the Bullets into six turnovers to lead 24-18 at quarter-time.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Johnson going with a little bit of ? ????? ? off his left ?‍??<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/DWvegCw8Hy">pic.twitter.com/DWvegCw8Hy</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1610924654931378176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Andrew White III scored Brisbane's first five points of the second quarter to keep the home team in touch, but Cairns soon blew the game apart and tensions between the two teams threatened to get out of hand.

After an altercation late in the first quarter that ended with a tech foul against DJ Mitchell for a swipe at Mirko Djeric, McCall accentuated contact running into a screen from Tanner Krebs which ended with a tech against the Bullets forward.

Aside from that, Cairns got under the skin of the Bullets led by McCall and turned it into points scoring 11 straight points to open up an 11-point lead.

Brisbane made a brief flurry but another 9-0 Taipans run saw the lead grow to 20 and only Johnson's 15 points for the Bullets limited the damage.

The Snakes still led 55-37 at the main break on the back of going 18/23 to 4/5 at the foul line with both teams combining for 6/31 from beyond the arc.

The Taipans weren’t about to let up to start the second half and they scored 11 of the first 15 points to suddenly see their lead blow out to 27. They were far from done and a couple of three balls to DJ Hogg saw that balloon to 29.

Ben Ayre hit a triple soon after and scored inside again to push the Cairns advantage out to 32 before the Snakes went into three quarter-time still leading 83-56.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">McCall ???????? it back in for the sweet dime ?<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/d6AIxQHjmr">pic.twitter.com/d6AIxQHjmr</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1610920280926584833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Ther were some encouraging signs in the fourth for Brisbane including a couple of triples and 10 points from Kody Stattmann and an alley-oop finish from Matthew Johns, but it mattered little with the Snakes rolling to the 26-point win.

The Taipans back up to now host the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Sunday. The Bullets don't play again until next Wednesday at home to the Sydney Kings.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 14

BRISBANE BULLETS 81 (Johnson 32, Stattmann 10, Cadee 8)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 107 (Waardenburg 24, Hogg 23, Ayre 20) 

BOX SCORE