IN A tense National Basketball League (NBL) encounter between the bottom two teams in the competition, Cairns Taipans were able to get the best of Brisbane Bullets in a five-point victory.

Brisbane has had it rough this season, as of now having the most injuries in the entire league, with six sidelined players. Going into the game, arguably the top three most valuable players to the squad in Tyrell Harrison, Casey Prather and Javon Freeman-Liberty were all ruled out of the game. To make it even worse for the Bullets, other key pieces in Dakota Mathias and Lamar Patterson are also injured and were ruled out of the match.

This led to the Bullets starting a lineup of Hunter Maldonado, Mitch Norton, Alex Ducas, Jacob Holt and Terry Taylor, which was a largely untested combination. The Bullets’ new lineup allowed Cairns to start off hot, and by the end of the first quarter, Brisbane was down 28-16.

Everything seemed to be going well for Cairns until the third quarter, when Sam Waardenburg suffered a nasty ankle injury after landing on Terry Taylor‘s foot. This made a noticeable impact on Cairns’ morale as Waardenburg had 13 points on 6/6 efficiency before getting injured. From then on, Brisbane seemed to find more scoring opportunities, and momentum began to switch.

The game slowly started to switch as Maldonado and Taylor started to heat up, and the Bullets slowly crept up until in the final minute of the game, where they found themselves just three points down. Andrews hit a big three down the stretch to increase the lead to six, but still, Brisbane refused to go away.

A big three by Ducas and some free throws from Maldonado put the score to 84-83 with just 30 seconds left, but a questionable shot attempt by Maldonado to put them in the lead gave Cairns the ball with limited time left, and they were able to control the lead for the final seconds of the game.

Andrews had control of the game early on for Cairns, finding teammates and creating scoring opportunities out of nothing and had yet another impressive double-double, finishing with 18 points and 13 assists, following his previous game against Melbourne United, where he had 13 points and also 13 assists.

Following his brother Jaylin‘s star performance against Melbourne United over the weekend, Kyrin Galloway seemed to carry that same energy into this game, finishing with an efficient 19 points. Jack McVeigh led the team in scoring with 25 points to go with six rebounds and six assists, proving once again to have settled in his role since the midseason break.

With the loss of three of Brisbane’s primary scorers, Taylor and new signing Maldonado needed to step up as the primary scorers. Maldonado looked to be a different player than he was in the first half of the season for SEM Phoenix before his move to Brisbane.

Every time he got the ball, he was driving aggressively, and more times than not, he was fouled and would go to the charity stripe. He finished as the game leader in points with 31, including 13/18 from the free throw line, while Taylor played beyond his height, using brute force and athleticism in the paint to finish with 22 points and eight rebounds.

Not much changes for either team from this game, as Cairns stay at ninth spot and Brisbane stays at last place. The Bullets will attempt to redeem themselves on Thursday against third-placed Sydney Kings, who are looking seriously dangerous as we get to the final stages of NBL26. The Taipans will play on the weekend against the New Zealand Breakers, and McVeigh will be one to watch after scoring a career high 47 points on them in their last encounter.