R9 Preview: Cairns Taipans vs Illawarra Hawks

When: 5.30pm (AEDT), Saturday 29 January, 2022

Where: Cairns Convention Centre

Broadcast: ESPN; Kayo; Sky Sports NZ

Who won last time?
Illawarra 93 (Jessup 24, Harvey 22, S Froling 15) d Cairns 81 (Machado 17, Deng 16, King 12) - Round 19 2021, WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong

A 21-6 Hawks third quarter turned this late-season contest on its head, Sam Froling and AJ Ogilvy dominating inside after half-time, before Justinian Jessup and Tyler Harvey finished off the game-defining burst from outside. A hot Mirko Djeric had Cairns within four midway through the fourth, but eight points from Harvey and a Froling dunk sealed the deal.


What happened last start?

Harvey and Froling shot 7/21 between them as the Hawks again struggled to score late and had no genuine answers for Perth at either end. While their defensive identity has been built on disruption and forcing turnovers, against NBL22’s best teams their pressure has been ineffectual, and that allowed the Wildcats' stars to pick their half-court defence apart.

Cairns tried hard but were full of rust on their trip to Gippsland, gifting the ball to South East Melbourne 23 times. The Taipans tried to pass the ball like the Rio Boomers but resembled the Washington Generals, wasting what was a gutsy performance coming off a 26-day COVID-enforced lay-off, where their offence was productive when they stuck to basics.


Who’s in form?

Cairns’ half-court offence – The Taipans were -11 in the possession game and -29 on possession points, but lost by just 10 points. When they executed ball-screen action and attacked the hoop, and used Stephen Zimmerman and Nate Jawai near the rim, they invariably got good shots or free throws and allowed their D to be far more effective.

Brian Goorjian – The Goorj has talked about his team’s poor defence, the need to get his bench more involved and the opposition focus on his offensive stars. It’s no coincidence three of the NBL’s top four defensive teams lead the league in bench minutes. Illawarra plays their reserves the least, and their fatigued starters are struggling at both ends late.


Who needs to be?

Keanu Pinder – Duop Reath might be on struggle street – shooting 6/24 in his past three games and now battling a hip complaint – but a player of his quality won’t stay down for long, especially if the Hawks can get his three-point game going. Pinder’s become a huge part of the Taipans’ second-ranked defence with his ability to guard multiple positions, and he must avoid the foul trouble that limited him to 22 minutes on Tuesday.

Sam Froling – In Illawarra’s past two wins, Samson has been a pillar of strength with 22.5 points at 67 per cent, while in their past four losses those numbers have shrunk to 6.5ppg at 36 per cent. Probably most disappointing in Thursday’s loss to Perth was his return of just 1 rebound, after averaging 10.6 in his previous five games. Froling needs to relight the fire on the boards, and his coach and teammates must get him more scoring opportunities.

https://twitter.com/illawarrahawks/status/1485566666474164226


Who’s statting up?

 - The Hawks are 0-4 in their past four final quarters, averaging just 17.8 points. In the other 12 periods in that stretch they’ve averaged 22.6 and split them 6-6

 - In their past three losses to Melbourne and the 'Cats, Illawarra have forced 11.7 turnovers and averaged 14 points from turnovers. In their win over Adelaide, they forced 16 cough-ups and converted that to 30 points

 - Cairns gave up 34 points off turnovers at 75 per cent to the Phoenix. On all other possessions, the Snakes defence held South East Melbourne to just 37 per cent shooting

 - The Taipans’ defensive rating has dropped from a league-worst 118.8 last season to a second-best 99.3 so far in NBL22, ranking second in opposition scoring (78ppg), defensive field-goal percentage (40%) and turnovers forced (15.2)


Who’s matching up?

Tahjere McCall v Tyler Harvey – T-Raw may have shot 14/48 in three games against Perth and Melbourne, but that makes him more dangerous in this one. In his NBL career, Harvey has scored below 15 points on nine occasions, but has bounced back to average 20.3ppg in his next game, and burned Adelaide for 19 at 62 per cent last week on the rebound. While he got to 16 points against the 'Cats on Monday, expect another bounce-back performance.

It’s no secret McCall is the heart and soul of the Taipans, taking over the playmaking from Scott Machado and dishing 18 dimes in two games, while shutting down Xavier Munford against the Phoenix and switching onto Mitch Creek when he got hot. Can he overcome the defensive attention of Antonius Cleveland, pick Harvey up in transition, chase him off countless screens and still produce an efficient offensive game? Time will tell.

https://twitter.com/CairnsTaipans/status/1485914470451150849



Who’s talking the talk?

It must have been hard for Cairns coach Adam Forde to comprehend what he was watching in Gippsland, but post-game he decided it was like a scratch match.

“There was a little bit of pre-season about it, we didn’t execute very well in the first half, we didn’t execute anything in the first half. Credit to South East, they sped us up,” he said.

“I don’t mind the turnovers where we’re attacking rim, we did a good job getting to the foul line, we keep attacking the rim, that’s what we want to do.

“We stay in touch being one of the better teams with our attempts at the rim and our free-throw rate and we ticked those boxes.

“But we get a stop and then you throw the ball into the front row, you get a stop and then you pass it straight to the opposition, and there was a little bit of we stopped playing and we’re looking to complain rather than just moving on.”

It was that last part, the response to mistakes, that was most costly for the Taipans, who were -25 on points from turnovers in a 10-point loss.

“What killed us was the points they generated off those turnovers,” Forde said.

“They had six three-pointers in the second quarter, the majority of those were in transition. They had 34 (PFTs) for the game, that’s the deciding factor.

“Our transition D isn’t great, and that’s something we’ve been really locking in on, I don’t want to use COVID as an excuse, just get back, get back and defend, and we didn’t.”

https://twitter.com/SEMelbPhoenix/status/1485902835888066564


But the first-year Taipans boss was taking a positive from the performance ahead of the Hawks’ visit to the modern Snakepit on Saturday night.

“This is a good little heat check. Illawarra’s going to do similar things that South East were good at,” Forde said.

“They're going to pick up full court, they're going to try and speed us up, they're going to try and test our lungs like everyone else, they're going to try and make things chaotic for us out there.

“So the good thing is there’s a lot we can take away from this (Phoenix) game ... Illawarra’s another team that loves to shoot the three, loves to get out in transition, loves to junk it up defensively.”

The challenge for the Hawks is actually rediscovering that style, with their new-look roster struggling to adopt last season’s identity.

“Defensively, we've just got a group of guys that it’s not their strength, it’s something we’ve got to work at,” coach Goorjian said.

“If you look at Justin Simon last year, his number one thing was defence, so there’s a process right now of making these guys as a group cohesive and better defensively.”

https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1486629800223465480


The Hawks struggled with Perth’s versatile line-ups, and no one throws more different looks at opponents than Forde and the Taipans.

“It always seemed no matter if we went small or if we went big we always had a match-up issue,” Goorjian said.

“Then our advantage, really when you look at it, usually there was something there size-wise with Sam and Duop, but we got nothing happening there, five points out of that.”

Illawarra are playing their fourth game in the space of seven days, and that has forced Goorjian to go to a bench he had largely ignored early in the season.

Whereas the Taipans are accustomed to a variety of line-ups, Goorjian’s men are learning on the run, and their coach is trying to find some different looks that allow the team to apply last season’s trademark defensive pressure.

“It’s the middle of the third quarter, we’re down four and we've got a group of five on the floor that have never ever played together,” Goorjian said.

“You’ve got Tim in the four, playing with Harry and AC and JJ and Xavier, and that group of five has never played together.

“One thing that’s missing, we've done a lot of practice, but getting guys comfortable with each other on the floor. We’ve got certain groups that are, our starting five knows how to run things and do things together, but (not) when we go to the bench.”