Melbourne Looks to Silence Doubters as Pressure Builds

Melbourne United will be looking to silence the doubters on Thursday night as they take on a red-hot Cairns Taipans side at John Cain Arena.

United have been uncharacteristically streaky this season. While they managed to emerge with an impressive win against Perth in round three, difficult, low-scoring losses to Sydney and Tasmania have left a black mark on their NBL23 campaign so far.

Melbourne centre Isaac Humphries says the quality of the rest of the league is reflected in his side’s results so far this season.

“I think in the NBL a lot of people forget that teams are so close,” Humphries told the club's website.

“There’s no big deficit in teams, anyone can beat anyone on any night, and you have to be on you’re a-game all the time because there’s no bad teams.

“I think it’ll just be another challenge for us … we’re just excited to get better and play against another opponent.”

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Melbourne will be hoping to put more points on the board than in their 10-point loss to Tasmania, where they dropped just 64 points on 43 per cent shooting.

David Okwera says the errors that have crept into Melbourne’s game are nothing to worry about.

“We all know it’s early on in the season,” Okwera said on SEN. “We have a lot to improve on and there’s easy errors we can fix. Just simple errors in offence, talking on defence.

“We just have to stick to the process and we’ll be fine.

“They (Tasmania) did a great job playing defence and we obviously struggled to knock shots down, and their defence really contributed to that.

“We’ve got Cairns at home in front of the home crowd which has been great. Props to the home crowd, they’ve been great all season. Hopefully we can have another great crowd on Thursday and get the win for them.”