Taipans Hold Out Hawks

The Cairns Taipans ended 2022 in the most miraculous way and have now started 2023 with a gritty 96-89 road win against the Illawarra Hawks at the WIN Entertainment Centre on Monday night.

No team knows the challenges of winning in Wollongong more than the Snakes and they were once again without MVP fancy Keanu Pinder in a building they hadn’t won in since early in the 2016/17 season.

The Taipans might have been missing Pinder, but the Hawks were even more shorthanded with the absence of import duo Peyton Siva and Michael Frazier II. It didn’t stop a hard fought contest eventuating to close Round 13.

It was Ben Ayre that helped Cairns to a lead by quarter-time with 15 points in the opening term before foul trouble limited his influence. The Snakes' lead was out to 10 by half-time but the Hawks ended the third term with the last eight points to make things interesting.

Tyler Harvey then even put Illawarra back in front midway through the fourth quarter, but it was only briefly. 

Cairns ended up having enough answers with the game on the line as they improved to 12-7 on the season to enhance their top two prospects with a first win in the 'Gong in over six years.

The Hawks made it a focus to go inside to work and scored 56 points in the paint to 30 from the Taipans, but the Snakes did make 14/41 from deep opposed to 5/21 even if they did only go 5/19 in the second half.

Shannon Scott backed up his 31 points in the New Year's Eve miracle against Adelaide for Cairns with another 18 points to go with six assists, four rebounds and two steals.

DJ Hogg added 16 points, eight rebounds and three assists, Majok Deng 13 points and seven boards, Tahjere McCall 11 points, six assists and four rebounds, and Sam Waardenburg 11 points and nine rebounds with all of Ben Ayre's 15 points coming in the opening period.

Illawarra's co-captains Sam Froling and Tyler Harvey came up big with the former finishing with 25 points, 13 rebounds and five assists, and the latter 21 points and three assists.

Davo Hickey had some moments late he might like back, but was impressive for the most part with 14 points, five rebounds and two steals.

Mangok Mathiang had eight points and six boards, Deng Deng seven points and six rebounds, and Daniel Grida seven points, four boards and two steals.

Despite the absence of Peyton Siva and Michael Frazier, the Hawks started on fire with 11 of the game's first 13 points with five of them coming from Deng Deng, and three each from Sam Froling and Tyler Harvey.

Ben Ayre was the man to come on and give Cairns the spark in a spectacular performance. The Taipans guard would end up with 15 points in the opening quarter and that helped the Snakes lead 27-26, but the Hawks stayed in touch with Harvey and Froling combining for 16 points.

Even though Ayre didn’t add to his 15 points in the second quarter having picked up a fourth foul, his teammates got rolling and it was Majok Deng who nailed consecutive three balls to help get things going.

The Snakes would score the opening 17 points of the second period having held Illawarra scoreless for almost four whole minutes to go from a point up at quarter-time to being up 18.

Daniel Grida was the man to stop the Hawks' drought and that kickstarted a 12-0 run from the home team before Cairns still managed to head into half-time leading 58-48 having shot 9/22 from deep where the Hawks were 2/10.

The Taipans were able to maintain a double-digit lead again through most of the third quarter but the Hawks kept hanging around. By scoring the last eight points on the back of a Davo Hickey three ball, suddenly Cairns only led 74-71 by three quarter-time.

Harvey then brought scores level with a three ball to open the fourth and the stage was set for another thrilling finish on a Monday night in Wollongong.

Things got a little scrappy from both teams until a Tahjere McCall open three gave Cairns seven straight points to put them back up five with four minutes to play.

The Hawks continued to hang around but big late buckets late for the Taipans from Scott, McCall and Hogg helped them secure the important seven-point win.

The Taipans are next up on Thursday night on the road to the Brisbane Bullets while the Hawks head to Adelaide to play the 36ers on Friday evening.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 13

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 89 (Froling 25, Harvey 21, Hickey 14)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 96 (Scott 18, Hogg 16, Ayre 15) 

BOX SCORE