Kings go down to the Snakes in NBL Cup Game 5

Written by Matt McQuade for Kings Media 

Result: Cairns Taipans 96 Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings 92

Stats That Matter: Taipans 53% FG; Rebound count Taipans 37 Kings 26; Taipans 54 points in the paint; Taipans 24 second chance points

Kings MVP: Another career night for Dejan Vasiljevic who continues to fill it up.

Turning Point: A fourth quarter 12-2 run put the Taipans ahead for good.

The game was over when: Fabian Krslovic had a steal and dunk to give the Taipans a six-point buffer with 37 seconds remaining.

Trending in the right direction: Craig Moller worked hard and made some plays at the defensive end of the floor.

Despite a career night from Rookie of the Year candidate Dejan Vasiljevic, the Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings have fallen short on Thursday night at the NBL Cup in Melbourne, going down 96-92 to the Cairns Taipans at the State Basketball Centre.

Vasiljevic broke his own single game rookie scoring record for the purple and gold to continue his sensational start to his professional career, going a perfect five of five from three-point range and blistering the nets for 13 of 17 from the field to finish with 32 points, adding three rebounds and three assists in another superb display.

Casper Ware added 28 points, four rebounds and four assists, but the duo received little offensive help, with Jordan Hunter (11 points, six rebounds) the only other King to reach double figures in scoring.

“I wanted to give (Dejan and Casper) a little breather too,” Head Coach Adam Forde admitted.

“Casper played 33 minutes; we sat him out for a stretch in the second to catch his breath, knowing he needs to finish out the game and DJ played 39 minutes.”

“Casper’s workload in terms of scoring and defending as our point guard takes its toll and is taxing. Ideally, we need that third or fourth person to step up. It changes night to night, but yeah, we need to get better.”

Despite the offence beginning the game in high gear, thanks to Ware and Vasiljevic combining for four triples and 20 of Sydney’s 28 first quarter points, the defence struggled from the outset, particularly in trying to contain Cairns point guard Scott Machado (24 points, four assists, three rebounds) and failed to keep the Taipan bigs off the glass.

Cairns stayed in touch in the face of Sydney’s early onslaught, and trailed by just two points at the first break before putting the Kings to the sword in the second, outscoring the purple 25-13 in establishing a 51-41 lead at the main break, with Nathan Jawai (22 points, six rebounds, three assists), Fabian Krslovic (15 points, ten rebounds) and Cameron Oliver (12 points, four rebounds) giving Sydney’s frontline a number of problems.

At that point, the Taipans had 32 points inside the paint against a lethargic Kings’ unit and grabbed nine offensive rebounds in the first half.

“It’s something we addressed pregame, but we just looked flat, we looked tight, we looked old, and that was unfortunate,” Coach Forde said.

However, after a halftime address from their sideline leader, the Kings roared back to life at the start of the second half, throwing a full court press at the Taipans that caused Cairns to turn the ball over in their opening two possessions and showing the energy that was lacking in the opening 20 minutes.

With Craig Moller (five points, four rebounds, two blocked shots) keying the improved defensive effort, the Kings began to work their way back in the game, and a 10-2 run capped by a pair of buckets from Didi Louzada (eight points, four rebounds) gave Sydney a 65-64 advantage with less than two minutes remaining in the third period.

Unfortunately, Jawai continued to monster Sydney’s bigs in the paint, and his six late points gave the Taipans a 73-67 lead with a quarter remaining.

Sydney continued to put the pressure on as the fourth quarter got underway, and a three from Louzada followed by a pair of buckets from Hunter gave the Kings a 78-77 lead with less than six minutes left.

Moller followed with a huge triple, and when Vasiljevic drained another one from downtown, Sydney led 85-81 with four minutes left and looked like they were going to go on with it.

Unfortunately, Sydney’s defensive woes came to the fore again, and an 8-0 run capped by a three from Mirko Djeric (12 points) gave the Taipans an 89-85 advantage and a lead they would ultimately not relinquish.

However, the Kings fought it out right to the final buzzer. Ware and Vasiljevic did all they could to drive their team to the finish line, but costly turnovers down the stretch and an inability to get stops when they absolutely needed them hurt Sydney as they dropped to 5-7 in their NBL21 campaign.

Ironically, despite the loss, the Kings picked up three points in the NBL Cup with wins in three quarters, putting them, albeit temporarily, in second place on the Cup ladder with 18 total points.

That would be cold comfort for Coach Adam Forde however, whose main concerns coming out of the game were the team’s lack of defence and rebounding.

“We were able to get in a couple of good practice sessions on the court and we tried a couple of things, but it’s hard to implement it with a quick turnaround,” Coach Forde said.

“We’re down on personnel obviously, but it’s not about who isn’t in the line-up and we need to collectively do a better job.”

“It’s something we need to improve and work on. Part of it is desire – there’s technique involved with rebounding, but a lot of it also is that you either want to go get it or you don’t.”

“We’ll continue to make strides and hopefully improve in that area.”

Sydney faces another quick turnaround, playing their sixth game of the NBL Cup on Saturday night against the South East Melbourne Phoenix at John Cain Arena. Tipoff is at 8:00pm and the game will be broadcast on ESPN, SBS On Demand and NBL.TV.

Rise With Us Sydney.

CAIRNS TAIPANS 96 (Machado 24, Jawai 22, Krslovic 15)
BRYDENS LAWYERS SYDNEY KINGS 92 (Vasiljevic 32, Ware 28, Hunter 11) at John Cain Arena, Melbourne.

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