An inspired Cairns Taipans have claimed their third consecutive win in three trips to Auckland, beating the New Zealand Breakers 122-111 at the North Shore Events Centre on Thursday night.
The Taipans poured in 70 points in the second half to complement a mighty defensive effort, the visitors shrugging off their miserable scoring woes against the Tigers with a 35 and 35 split in the third and fourth quarters.
Despite contributing a respectable 23 points for the home side Kirk Penney struggled to find his usual metronomic accuracy from the field for New Zealand and was dispossessed four times in the first half. It was characteristic of the Taipans effort over the four quarters. Centre Rick Rickert contributed yet another double-double with 25 points and 10 boards.
The Taipans' scoring was led by Darnell Mee with 26 points (7 assists), 16 of which came in the second half. He had plentiful support from Dave Thomas with 22 (6 boards), Ian Crosswhite threw in 21 points and Larry Abney had a double-double with 14 points, 13 rebounds.
Taipans' coach Alan Black was delighted with the over-all discipline and tactical execution his team showed in Auckland.
"I thought we lost our way a little bit late in the second quarter – we had a game plan to get out at their three point shooters – but I thought we did a tremendous job for the rest of the game," Black said.
"We put their main shooters under pressure and made other people beat us and we did that pretty well. Offensive, where we've struggled a fair bit this season we had a huge effort,"
Black said that despite last Saturday's miserable shooting performance against the Melbourne Tigers, he'd always had confidence his players would turn it around.
"I went over the tape after the Tigers game and I thought we took the right shots in that game… We just missed them."
"I looked at every shot we took in that game and decided we could turn that performance around pretty quickly. We know we have plenty of good shooters and I thought the big fella (Ian Crosswhite) was really good getting us some tough inside baskets."
Indeed Cairns looked sharp from the get-go with big man Crosswhite racing to eight points in just over four minutes and Stephen Black sticking to the Breakers guards like glue.
The home sides' chief scoring threat Kirk Penney immediately found himself under very close attention, robbed twice inside four minutes by Darnell Mee and Black. A Tony Ronaldson turnover was then punished with a three by Dave Thomas and Cairns was out to a 15-7 after five minutes.
Breakers' coach Andrej Lemanis reacted by pulling Penney and Ronaldson to the bench in favour of Boucher and Jones and a moment later Rickert brought his teams', and his own, tally to 11 points.
Cairns' big men Crosswhite and Matt Smith were proving a handful forcing the hosts into foul trouble with six fouls on the board halfway through the period.
Dave Thomas hit a long field goal to follow a Black triple and the Taipans' lead was out to 14 at 25-11.
Penney opened his account nine minutes into the match with a triple and Phill Jones and CJ Bruton followed suit. When Darnell Mee gave up a traveling violation Bruton ensured the hosts carried some momentum into the second quarter: driving