R15 Preview: Cairns Taipans v SE Melbourne Phoenix

When: 5.00pm (AEST), Sunday 25 April 

Where: Cairns Pop-Up Arena

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

The last time
South East Melbourne 85 (Creek 21, Gliddon 14) d Cairns 81 (Machado 24, Oliver 22) – NBL Cup Week 4, John Cain Arena, Melbourne

The last meeting between the two teams was way back on the Friday night of the final week of the NBL Cup in Melbourne, and at that time the Taipans were just crying out for the hub to come to an end and the Phoenix were building some impressive momentum on their way to earning a share of the prizemoney.

Ryan Broekhoff was making his debut for the Phoenix just days after completing two weeks of quarantine, and he made an immediate impact hitting a three on his first touch of the ball in the NBL. With Mitch Creek on fire, South East Melbourne opened up a 15-point advantage by late in the third quarter to appear cruising to the win. 

But Cairns refused to give up the ghost and with Scott Machado inspired and Cam Oliver on song, the Taipans import pair combined for 46 points and the Snakes got back within two with a minute to play. They had come back from 19 points down two days ago before losing to the New Zealand Breakers on the buzzer, and this time it was old Taipan Cam Gliddon who shut the door on them as the Phoenix won by four.

Creek was particularly forceful in this encounter, especially in the first half where his 16 points propelled the Phoenix to an 47-36 half-time lead. He was on his way to 21 points and impressed on the defensive end. Gliddon was superb too against his original NBL club with 14 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three steals with Kyle Adnam, Ben Moore and Yanni Wetzell all adding 12 points.

Machado was the star on the night for Cairns with 24 points, five rebounds and three assists while Cam Oliver wasn’t far behind with 22 points and seven boards. They combined to shoot 6/7 from deep too. Fabijan Krslovic, Nate Jawai and Next Star Mojave King all added seven points.

The now

A whole lot has happened since the Taipans and Phoenix last met at the NBL Cup in Melbourne.

The Taipans have played nine matches since and having put together a 3-6 record during that stretch, but from that last meeting with South East Melbourne back on Friday March 12, they will be without Cam Oliver and Kouat Noi.

The Phoenix have played 10 matches since that last up win over Cairns and have gone 5-5 in that time. But compared to that line-up they had last against the Taipans, they won't have Ryan Broekhoff and Kendall Stephens this Sunday but will have 450-game milestone man Adam Gibson who was missing at that time.

Cairns is coming into Sunday's clash at home on the back of a morale-boosting win in Tasmania on Friday over the New Zealand Breakers. Despite the departure during the week of Cam Oliver and with regular starters Kouat Noi and Majok Deng still sidelined through injury, the Snakes showed great heart to tough out the 70-68 win.

That came in the end with a game winning triple from Tad Dufelmeier and a match-saving block from new arrival Venky Jois. Nate Jawai was also a dominant presence in his 150th appearance for the Taipans with 21 points and eight rebounds. 

That has the Snakes entering Sunday's game at home on a 7-18 record having now won two of their past three matches, and looking for consecutive wins for just the second time this season.

South East Melbourne enters Sunday's clash desperate for a win too. The Phoenix were looking to put pressure on for a top two spot only a couple of weeks ago, but they have now lost their past three matches to only be clinging to fourth position on the table at 13-12.

The Phoenix will still be missing Keifer Sykes, Ryan Broekhoff, Dane Pineau and Kendall Stephens on Sunday, but if winning for the importance of their season isn’t enough motivation, it will also be the 450th NBL game of dual championship winner Adam Gibson.

But South East Melbourne will just be desperate to respond to Thursday's 20-point home loss to Sydney where they conceded 101 points, 29 foul shots, 17 offensive rebounds and 28 second chance points while shooting just 39 per cent from the field and earning 12 trips to the line themselves. It's a big game for the Phoenix in the context of maintaining a hold on a top four spot or dropping right back to the chasing pack.

The stats

- The Taipans and Phoenix have only met four times previously with both teams having won two of those apiece. Only one of those previous meetings has been at Cairns and that was a win in Round 13 of last season for the Taipans 92-84, but that was at the Convention Centre. They still have two more games to play later this season in Melbourne.

- Not only have South East Melbourne lost their past three matches in their longest losing run of the season, but their third quarters in each of those games have been even where the damage has been done. The Kings outscored the Phoenix 35-14 and then 28-12 in their two wins while the 36ers also outscored them 28-19 in their third quarter. That means the Phoenix have been outscored by 46 points in their last three third quarters during which they've shot 1/18 from three-point land.

- The Taipans will need to be mindful of Kyle Adnam and Cam Gliddon catching fire shooting for the Phoenix on Sunday. Adnam has had a tremendous season but has made just 2/16 from three-point shooting of late while former Taipan Gliddon has never made a three-point shot in 10 attempts as a visiting player in Cairns either for the Brisbane Bullets or the Phoenix.

The key men

Nate Jawai – Based on what he showed on Friday night in the win for the Cairns Taipans over the New Zealand Breakers in Tasmania, the Snakes might be able to ride his unique presence down the stretch of this season. In a league that's getting increasingly smaller and relying less and less on inside presences, he can give Cairns something that no other team has and that most aren’t equipped to stop. If he's able to play somewhere around the 30 minutes that he did on Friday the rest of the season, he is going to be quite the headache for opposition teams given the way he is quite simply unstoppable the deeper he catches the ball. That means his opponents have a choice to double team him and force the ball out of his hands opening up chances for him to find the Taipans shooters, or they have to try their luck and hope he doesn’t put them away with bucket after bucket. How he pulls up after 21 points and eight rebounds in over 30 minutes on Friday in the win over the Breakers is going to be fascinating.

Mitch Creek – Phoenix coach Simon Mitchell guaranteed his return to the starting line-up for Sunday's clash in Cairns as South East Melbourne desperately tries to avoid suffering a fourth consecutive defeat for the first time in #NBL21. Thursday's 20-point loss to a horror show for the Phoenix against the Sydney Kings, but he did what he could to lift his team and finished with 29 points, three rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block. With his aggressiveness and ability to finish inside and now his ability to knock down the three ball, he's a nightmare match up for the Taipans and the Phoenix will be smart to try to ride him all the way to a win on Sunday.

The quotes

Sunday's game is a special one for Phoenix guard Adam Gibson as he becomes the 29th player in NBL history to reach 450 games. It's been a remarkable journey that started with a championship at the Brisbane Bullets before he was forced to find a new home and that run continued after his time with the South Dragons and Gold Coast Blaze. 

He then forged a strong career as captain at the Adelaide 36ers before returning to the Bullets and now having spent the past two seasons with South East Melbourne. Already the most experienced current player in the NBL, he reaches 450 games on Sunday in Cairns against the Taipans, and he doesn’t see the finishing line in sight yet.

"I'm happy to be the most experienced player if I'm not the oldest, a few other guys come to mind including Daniel Kickert who comes to mind who is a lot older. If I can play as long as him or as to as old at him, I might try to get closer to 500 or that record. We'll see what happens," Gibson said during an appearance on the podcast, Hoops Heaven's Basketball Hustle.

"I haven’t thought too much about the milestone, there's too much going on to focus on to be honest. I didn’t even realise that I'd played the most games of anyone in the league already now. I don’t really think about things like that too much, it will be something that once I've retired and am done at the end of my career I'll look back on. But as I get close to 450, I don’t feel as though I'm slowing down which is a good feeling and hopefully I can keep kicking along for a few more years yet.

"I definitely feel like I can keep playing right now but a lot can change even in a week. But for sure I want to definitely keep playing and my game isn’t reliant on speed or athleticism really. I've always been a bit smarter and known how to work my way through a game. So as long as my body holds up I can't see why I can't play on and only being 34, there's obviously been older guys. Dave Andersen played to 37 or 38, then you still have Kicks and there are guys like this older and still playing so there's no reason why I can't as long as the body holds up. I'll play until they boot me out the door."

But take out Gibson's milestone and it's a fascinating game on Sunday on a number of fronts including the Taipans looking to back up Friday night's win in Tasmania over the Breakers back home against the Phoenix.

Reigning NBL Coach of the Year Mike Kelly has had plenty to deal with this season at the Taipans and will now continue to be without Cam Oliver, Majok Deng and Kouat Noi, but he was especially happy with what Tad Dufelmeier, Venky Jois and Nate Jawai provided against New Zealand on Friday.

"I wouldn’t call them fringe players, I think that Tad has been working to get to this point firstly to be in an NBL game and then playing meaningful NBL minutes. So he has been really good for us through training for a long time so we've seen what he can do. He has just been waiting for the opportunity and he's taken it with both hands," Kelly said.

"The same with Venky who came in to do a job, and he brought great energy and really got us going. Nate was great. It was his 150th game with the Taipans and I'm really proud of him. He really stepped up and that would be highest minutes for the year, and he was really good. He then wanted to come back to finish the job and made a nice play there near the end, or was involved in all that. I'm really happy for Nate after that."

As for Dufelmeier, he is in his second year as a development player with the Taipans and has been working hard for the opportunities he's received over the past month as he continues to show he is an NBL calibre player.

To then hit the game-winning shot on Friday night and make some big defensive plays, he's living the dream right now.

"I'm feeling pretty good after that. Once again you live for those moments of coming down the stretch and making the big stops and hitting the big shots," Dufelmeier said. 

"You think about those things all the time and that's what I prepare for to help us come out with the win, and I'm just happy that we got it."

Phoenix coach Simon Mitchell wasn’t interested in mincing words about what he thought of his team's performance in the loss on Thursday night at home to the Sydney Kings.

He knows it all starts in the physicality and effort areas, and that's where he'll be looking to for the big improvement on Sunday in Cairns which will include having Mitch Creek back into the starting line-up.

"We were happy to get his impact off the bench but we are going to have to find that somewhere else because we need to get some leads early. We need to get momentum early in the game instead of starting off on the back foot. We need that strength of character out on the floor to start the game and that will happen now in the next game," Mitchell said.

"That was an awful performance. It's really disappointing. Every team is going to face some difficulties during the course of the year and right now we're having ours, and we're not backing up on game day. The injuries have been there all year and we've been able to overcome. We've had guys having some pretty good purple patches and when we don’t have everyone performing at a high level, we get to see performances like this. 

"We have to snap out of it quickly and the first thing you have to assess yourself on is your physicality, and we got absolutely manhandled out there. We gave up way too many o-boards and 26 second chance points is just a disaster. We'll start from there and defensively we have to be accountable one-on-one, our pick-and-roll defence was pretty poor and these are the things we'll start with. We'll worry about the offensive woes after that."