The Unseen Pillars of Cairns' Cracking Success

If there’s anything NBL fans learned on the weekend it’s that you can never count out the Cairns Taipans.

Down by six points with just over a minute remaining Cairns managed to level the scores via a late DJ Hogg three to send the game to overtime on the back of taking control once Xavier Cooks fouled out for the Sydney Kings.

They would emerge from the exciting clash with the reigning champions as the victors on the back of a 10-2 run to close regulation, 26-12 after Cooks went out of the game.

Aside from getting some semblance of revenge on the Kings for their buzzer-beating win back in Round 5 when ironically it was Keanu Pinder fouling out, the win saw the Taipans hold onto their position of third on the ladder, however they managed to close the gap on the Kings in second and now sit just one game outside the top two.

“This is a team that’s very difficult to put away,” Corey Williams said on NBL Overtime. “You think you might have them on the ropes and then they figure out a way to win.

“Resilience is exactly the correct word for what they showed [against the Kings].

“The Cairns Taipans are looking the goods, [I’m] loving Keanu Pinder, DJ Hogg - I’m a fan. We’re all fans of him and we’re glad he’s in the league. He put on when it mattered most down the stretch."

While the Taipans emerged from the game unscathed and with a crucial win sitting in the back pocket, Sydney entered the overtime period undermanned due to Cooks fouling out late in the fourth quarter.

Before he was forced from the game Cooks had put on an absolute clinic. He and fellow MVP candidate Pinder traded blows for most of the game in what was the most mouth-watering individual matchup of the season so far.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">WE&#39;RE GOING TO OT!!! ?<br><br>Watch LIVE on ESPN ? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OrangeArmy?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OrangeArmy</a> <a href="https://t.co/rV6ifshGzZ">pic.twitter.com/rV6ifshGzZ</a></p>&mdash; Cairns Taipans (@CairnsTaipans) <a href="https://twitter.com/CairnsTaipans/status/1597177310611849216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 28, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Liam Santamaria believes Cooks fouling out cost the Kings the win.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “We got robbed of seeing him in crunch time and the Kings probably would have won the game. In the end they’re the kind of swings and roundabouts that happen.

“The fourth foul was a bad whistle … Sam Waardenburg on the block took the first hit then went down on the second. It should have been a flop, it shouldn’t have been a whistle on Xavier Cooks so that’s a shame.

“The fifth foul with Pinder coming down the lane, he jumped, he turned, and it was a foul.”