THE Cairns Taipans will continue to tinker with their spluttering offence after giving up an 11-point fourth-quarter lead to lose 101-93 in Wollongong last night.
After a scratchy first half, the Taipans looked comfortable in their NBL clash against the Hawks after a 15-0 run late in the third quarter set up a nine-point lead at the final break.
That was extended to double figures seconds into the final term before the Hawks fought their way back into the match on the back of a long-bomb spree from Glen Saville.
Saville (19 points) and Taipan Gary Boodnikoff (23) traded threes in the final quarter but once the Hawks had momentum, they were hard to stop.
"It was disappointing," Taipans coach Alan Black said of the loss.
"We played well at the time (in the third quarter) and I thought flowed in offence better than we have for a time.
"But the first two minutes of the last quarter, they were able to take the ascendency and that was the story of the game.
"I just thought that they started to shoot the ball very comfortably and we weren’t able to get that pressure."
Black said the key to winning was to maintain the gap forged in the third term.
"We allowed it to get back to three or four points very quickly and then they were confident and running on adrenalin a bit."
Cairns was in the match until the final seconds, Kavossy Franklin’s clutch three-pointer pushing the Hawks’ lead out to five points with just 35 seconds left on the clock and forcing the Taipans to send their rivals to the free-throw line in an attempt to stop the clock and score quick points.
But they were unable to convert their final chances with Wollongong sealing an important home win.
The Taipans play Wollongong again in Cairns on Saturday night and Black said they needed to bounce back quickly. "We’ll need to get on top of it and work out what we did in the third (quarter) that was good and what we did in the fourth that was bad, basically."
While Cairns struggled to score at times, the performance was a vast improvement on last Saturday’s 29-point shellacking by the Dragons – the 65-point score the worst since the club’s debut season in 2000.
"There’s no doubt (it was better last night). Our offence was better, our ball movement was better," Black said. "I think there’s a bit of fine-tuning (still to be done) but certainly it was a hell of a lot better than Saturday."
Black was encouraged by Boodnikoff’s performance and hoped it would help spur his season.
"I thought he shot the ball well and shot confidently," he said. "Hopefully, it will encourage him for Saturday."
WOLLONGONG HAWKS 101 (K Franklin 23 G Saville 19 A Petrie 16) d CAIRNS TAIPANS 93 (G Boodnikoff 23 L Abney 22 M Cattalini 15) at WIN Entertainment Centre. Crowd: 1877.
