JackJumpers Lockdown Taipans for Big Win

The Tasmania JackJumpers delivered their trademark defence and got rolling shooting after quarter-time to keep their playoff dreams alive with a 85-69 win over the Cairns Taipans on Friday night.

The two teams met on Friday at Cairns Convention Centre and the Snakes started on fire racing to a 7-2 start, and still led 19-15 by the end of one. But it was all the JackJumpers the rest of the way.

Tasmania hit six of their last seven three-point attempts to close the first half to lead by 11 before stretching that lead out to 20 during the third period before cruising to the 16-point win.

The victory improves the JackJumpers to 9-9 on the season with 10 games to go to stay in the top four race. The Snakes are 4-11 having lost seven of their previous eight.

Josh Adams top-scored for Tasmania with 20 points but he had plenty of help including Fabijan Krslovic enjoying his return to Far North Queensland with 13 points including going 3/4 from downtown.

Jack McVeigh also shot the three ball at 3/5 for 13 points with Josh Magette adding 10 points, five rebounds and three assists, and captain Clint Steindl 10 points.

Understandably, JackJumpers coach Scott Roth was happy with the performance.

"It was kind of a little bit of a statement win for us. Anytime you win on the road in this league is extremely hard and this building is a hard building to play in just in general," Roth said. 

"It was a great team win and great team effort across the board. Everyone contributed and this is a team and culture that we are establishing that when you come to Tasmania and put on a JackJumpers uniforms what it means and what it represents. Guys like this (Krslovic) have bought into it and love playing for each other."

Stephen Zimmerman was the only Taipans player to score in double-figures with 19 points, seven rebounds and four assists but again on 9/12 shooting, his advantages weren’t fully utilised.

Taipans coach Adam Forde only had one way to sum up his team's performance – embarrassing.

"It's embarrassing. After everything we rolled out today especially with the Bamaga footage and our Indigenous Round jerseys, that was embarrassing," Forde said.

"I take a huge part of the responsibility for that and I feel embarrassed for the support that was again outstanding by the Cairns community. You could feel it too when we sent the young fellas out with five minutes to go and they just went out and played hard, and played for minutes and the crowd appreciated that. 

"All I could think about was maybe we could play them earlier, I don’t know. We go through these stages and the interesting part is we respond when we call each other out and I've made multiple reference of it already. 

"I've used up all my ammo with that and it's draining for me to come in every week and point out who did this and what needs to change. We have a short-term response and then we put our feet up and forget how to play basketball."

The Taipans went inside early to get Stephen Zimmerman going for the game's first score before Kouat Noi gave the home team the 4-0 start. That became 7-2 with a triple from Bul Kuol, but the JackJumpers responded after a timeout from Scott Roth.

They tied scores up when Josh Adams hit from downtown but it was Zimmerman giving them problems, and he scored five quick points for Cairns to see them lead 14-9.

The Snakes were still up 19-15 by the end of one but both teams went dead cold to start the second quarter. The only points in almost four minutes came at the free-throw for the JackJumpers.

Eventually Matt Kenyon hit a three for the first field goal of the quarter and immediately Noi responded in kind up the other end. 

It was the JackJumpers that built on that and they would hit five more three-pointers to close out the half including one from Josh Adams on the buzzer to give them the 39-28 half-time lead having held the Snakes to just nine points the entire second period.

While Cairns scored first in the second half through Machado, the JackJumpers pulled right away with triples to Fabijan Krslovic and Adams. Josh Magette hit his first triple of the night soon after and suddenly it was a 20-point ball game.

Cairns tried to work back into the contest and had got back to within 14 by three quarter-time. While the Snakes made a brief flurry with triples to Kuol and Jarrod Kenny, there were never real signs of a comeback.

Krslovic hit his third triple of the game on his old home floor before Adams and Steindl also added three balls for the JackJumpers to romp to the 16-point win.

Both teams back up with another game in Round 15 on Sunday with the JackJumpers at home to the Illawarra Hawks at MyState Bank Arena. The Taipans remain at Cairns Convention Centre to host the Sydney Kings in a rematch from last Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 15

CAIRNS TAIPANS 69 (Zimmerman 19, Deng 9, Noi 8, Kuol 8)

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 85 (Adams 20, Krslovic 13, McVeigh 13) 

BOX SCORE