WHILE Melbourne United are in the midst of quite a drastic fall from grace compared to their first nine games, they remain in the top three on the table heading into tonight’s Ignite Cup Clash against the Cairns Taipans in the National Basketball League (NBL).

United have shown several flaws throughout their season, and are battling it out against hometown rivals SEM Phoenix for that second-place spot. The Adelaide 36ers remain considerably comfortable at the top of the ladder with an extra four wins, and are seen as the team to beat and the true contender to win the NBL26 championship, so United will be looking to get back on the winners’ list when they take on the Taipans.

With all this talk about the top-three positions and finals contention, we must flip to the other side of the spectrum in Cairns. Sitting at the bottom of the ladder with a subpar 5-17 record, there have not been many positives so far this season for the Taipans.

Their main struggles seem to come from their inability to keep their lead and remain steady under that pressure as the opposition team tries to come back. On many occasions, this has been their downfall, with other teams making the comeback almost look easy. In their last game against the Illawarra Hawks, they found themselves up by four at halftime, but they ended up losing 96-78, producing a disappointing second half performance.

United recently played the Tasmania JackJumpers over the weekend, losing 84-75 after a monster performance from Will Magnay, who put up 27 points and 13 rebounds to make up for their primary scorer, Bryce Hamilton‘s 10 point performance.

Melbourne’s loss of defensive maestro Shea Ili has caused a struggle. Still, Tyson Walker has been able to be that perimeter defender as a scrappy pest on that side of the floor. Whilst they have had some tough past couple of games, the track record that United has against Cairns this season is too good, and an upset looks to be almost impossible for the Taipans.

Their first matchup saw United tear the Taipans apart 95-60, with Jesse Edwards having a solid 16-point, 12-rebound double-double, and everyone across the board for United was able to go out and have their own individual moments.

The second matchup was in October, with United also winning 94-67. With Jack McVeigh missing through injury for this game, nobody was able to step up and play in his shoes, and United took advantage of that, leading by fifteen by the end of the first quarter and never looking back.

Whilst stranger things have definitely happened this season, a win for United seems almost inevitable at this point, as the track record shows that on every occasion this season, United have been able to expose Cairns—and there’s little to suggest that this game will be any different.