Taipans Catch Fire in Tassie

The Cairns Taipans came into NBL23 wanting to be a run and gun team and get up plenty of threes, and they nailed nine of them in a scintillating third quarter to set up a season-opening 106-84 win against the Tasmania JackJumpers.

Tasmania opened its season with a loss to the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Saturday before hitting MyState Bank Arena in front of 4231 adoring fans on Monday looking to hit back against a Cairns team playing its first game of NBL23.

The JackJumpers then knocked down 7/14 from three-point land in the opening half to lead by as much as 11 before the Taipans turned the tide in spectacular fashion.

After going just 2/12 from beyond the arc in the first half, the Snakes lit it up to go 9/13 in the third period for 39 points with DJ Hogg and Bul Kuol combining for six of them.

It was the exact type of basketball coach Adam Forde envisioned this team playing and then following a rough first six minutes of the fourth quarter, they put up a rapid-fire 14 points to close things out and win in style by 22. 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bul Kuol sealing a 39-point term for the Taipans ?<br><br>The highest scoring quarter for Cairns in the 40-minute era! ? <a href="https://t.co/uQyIeNgmYn">pic.twitter.com/uQyIeNgmYn</a></p>&mdash; Cairns Taipans (@CairnsTaipans) <a href="https://twitter.com/CairnsTaipans/status/1576879077704617984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Majok Deng is now the most experienced NBL player on this Taipans team with 170 games to his credit and he led brilliantly with 26 points and five rebounds on 9/11 shooting overall and 4/6 from downtown.

Kuol started his second season in style with 17 points on 3/6 three-point shooting while Hogg opened his NBL career with 17 points, five rebounds, four assists, four blocks and two steals as well as hitting 3/7 from long-range.

Keanu Pinder shook off a sore knee for 16 points, six rebounds and five assists while captain Tahjere McCall led the team with eight points, seven rebounds, seven assists and two steals.

Taipans coach Adam Forde kept the faith that if his team stuck to their plan, that what happened in the third quarter was possible.

"We momentarily gave up that lead right before the half and it's really important that we play through the siren in that instance which went off," Forde said. 

"We just have to keep playing until the refs pull us up and they got a three, and were up two when we walked into the changeroom at half-time. The first quarter was always going to be reality, but we were shooting 2/12 at the half and this team is built on shooting. 

"What was really cool was we were in touch through defensive effort and obviously we made some errors with switching on defence. But the checks and balances always even out, and I probably didn’t anticipate 39 points in the third quarter but I knew we had to stay with it, stay disciplined and stay with our stuff and it would flow."

Rashard Kelly top-scored for the JackJumpers with 15 points and four rebounds while Fabijan Krslovic finished with 13 points and five rebounds for Tasmania up against his former team.

Milton Doyle contributed 13 points, four boards and three assists. Sean Macdonald impressed again with 11 points on 3/4 three-point shooting with Jack McVeigh adding 11 points and five steals.

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth couldn’t comprehend Cairns getting to the foul line 32 times opposed to his team's 14 afterwards which coupled with the Taipans' 39-point third quarter was the major difference.

"Hats off to Cairns, they played fantastic and they were great at both ends of the floor," Roth said.

"You've got to embrace the struggle and our defence is obviously nowhere near where it was last season whatever the reasons may be. 

"The other night South East went to the foul line 29 times and tonight Cairns went there 32 times, and that's a recipe for disaster and it's undisciplined defence across the board. It's going to need to be a work in progress."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">DEFINE HOT START ???<br><br>Keanu Pinder with the millisecond slam to open this one?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> is live on ESPN via <a href="https://twitter.com/kayosports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@kayosports</a> and Foxtel. <a href="https://t.co/tzsPQBEMtb">pic.twitter.com/tzsPQBEMtb</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1576855215885586432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Cairns got off to the perfect start with a dunk from Keanu Pinder straight off the tip and things remained close through the first half of the opening quarter.

That was until Rashard Kelly caught fire with seven quick points and the JackJumpers went into quarter-time leading 23-15.

It was Milton Doyle's turn to hit a three early in the second quarter to stretch Tasmania's lead to 11 before Cairns steadied with their only two three-point makes of the opening half thanks to Majok Deng.

He went on to score 16 points for the half but it was former Taipan Fabijan Krslovic who had 11 as well for the JackJumpers including a buzzer-beating three to see his team lead 50-48 by the half-time break.

The Taipans came into the season wanting to be a three-point shooting team and they didn’t go into their shells despite a 2/12 first half. Also despite Pinder copping a knock to his knee early in the third quarter, Cairns put on a shooting display reminiscent of Adelaide in Phoenix.

Bul Kuol started things off before Shannon Scott and DJ Hogg joined in the fun. Hogg nailed two more for the quarter, Kuol also hit a couple more and all of a sudden the Snakes just couldn’t miss.

They hit nine threes in the third quarter alone to put up 39 points and turn a two-point deficit into a 20-point lead by three quarter-time.

Things dried up again to start the fourth for Cairns and a couple more threes for Tasmania from in-form Sean Macdonald helped cut the deficit. A dunk from Kelly had Tasmania back within 10 with the Snakes managing just three points in more than six minutes of the period.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rashard Kelly is getting it done on both ends to get the <a href="https://twitter.com/JackJumpers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JackJumpers</a> back into this one ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> is live on ESPN via Kayo Sports and Foxtel <a href="https://t.co/djS69KqqJo">pic.twitter.com/djS69KqqJo</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1576879802975682560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

However, the JackJumpers couldn’t go on with the job and it turned out Pinder fought bravely to return and threw down an alley-oop on the pass from McCall to end up securing the 22-point win.

The JackJumpers now will be part of quite the occasion now on Friday in Auckland against the New Zealand Breakers. The Taipans will remain on the road to play the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Saturday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 1

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 84 (Kelly 15, Krslovic 13, Doyle 13)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 106 (Deng 26, Hogg 17, Pinder 16) 

BOX SCORE