With only 4 games remaining and a spot in the post season still not locked in, the Tasmania JackJumpers will be looking to snatch a win in Cairns on Thursday night.
Cairns Taipans (11-14) vs Tasmania JackJumpers (12-12)
When: Thursday, February 1st, 7.30pm AEDT
Where: Cairns Convention Centre
TV: ESPN
The JackJumpers have one of their biggest rounds of the season, which will begin with an away game to the Cairns Taipans tonight before hosting the Adelaide 36ers on Sunday afternoon.
Two wins could see them all but secure a spot in the post season, while a pair of losses could see them slide out of the top 6 – a result that was unthinkable when the team was flying high earlier in the season.
Inconsistency has been a big problem for the JackJumpers in the back half of the season, who haven’t won back-to-back games since early December. For context, one of those wins was over the 36ers, who were still were under the helm of CJ Bruton. Since then they have gone 3-7.
They appeared to turn a corner with a stirring home win over Melbourne United two weeks ago, only to follow that up with a poor first half performance in New Zealand last week, that saw down 19 points down at half-time and eventually go down by 8.
“We know obviously the season’s coming to an end and there’s a lot of teams fighting for spots but we control some of that if we can get some wins across the line, if not we’ll be on the outside watching,” JackJumpers Coach Scott Roth said.
But Tasmania come up against a desperate opponent in Cairns whose season is on the brink if they don’t win tonight. But similar to the JackJumpers, they are grappling with similar issues of consistency, with just 11 wins from 25 games. The Taipans have become the “box of chocolates” team of NBL 24 with half of their wins being by double figures, while on the flip side the majority of their losses have also been in double figures.
“They play you know such a free style of basketball, they get up, they’re always looking for opportunities to attack and you know the more I guess chaotic the game will be I think plays into their hands a little bit more”, so that’s really where they thrive,” JackJumpers forward Fabian Krslovic said.
“So making sure the game’s is played on our terms you know with a the pace of play we want,” he said.
Matchups NBL24
Tasmania has had success in both games against the Taipans this season. Most recently on January 6 Tasmania played 4 quarters of solid team basketball to pull away to a 103-86 win.
While on the eve of the FIBA break in November, Jack McVeigh led Tasmania with 24 points and completed their comeback win in overtime with a famous three pointer on the buzzer.
Limiting the Cairns offence
Cairns have a well balanced offence, that can be hard to for the best defensive teams to hold down, which they’ve proved with multiple wins over the NBL’s defensive best in Melbourne United this season. They boast 5 players averaging over 9 points per game, while they take the most three point attempts than team in the NBL (32.1) and spread that across 10 players who average at least one three point attempt per game.
Embed from Getty ImagesThey also have a great habit of getting to the line with Tahjeer McCall and Patrick Miller combining for 12 of the teams 21.5 attempts per game. Well above Tasmania’s average of 17.8.
“Cairns will be quite dangerous in that building and they have a lot of quality scorers over there but ultimately it will be about us and our discipline that to not have excessive fouls, to make our foul shots, to have limited turnovers and make sure our shot selection and defence is on point,” Scott Roth said.
Magnay to keep shooting
Speaking of foul shooting, Scott Roth has given the green light to Will Magany to keep shooting from the line, despite shooting a disappointing 5 of 14 from the line during their loss to the Breakers on Friday.
“To this point he’s done a great job of creating a lot of fouls for us and allowing us to get to the foul line which we haven’t been able to do very much. Now we’ve got to capitalise on the fouls that he’s creating and getting us in the bonus early,” Roth said.
“We’re not asking him to be an 80 or 90 percent foul shooter, you know can he get into the mid 60’s and at that point then start to improve at some level. So this right now is not anything more right now for him I think much more mental than mechanical.”
Embed from Getty ImagesMagnay is shooting 53.8 percent from the foul line this season.