DrinkWise Preview: NBL25 - Round 6, Game 2 v Cairns Taipans

Melbourne United are back at home for our final Super Sunday game in October against the Cairns Taipans.

Fresh over a hard-fought win against the ladder-leading Illawarra Hawks, we will be looking to keep up our momentum in front of a huge crowd at John Cain Arena for our Grassroots Game.

A celebration of local basketball, the event is always an amazing showcase of the widespread love for hoops across Melbourne.

Like United, this will be Cairns’ second game of the weekend, having gone down to the Adelaide 36ers in overtime on Friday.

CATCH ALL THE HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR WIN OVER ILLAWARRA HERE

WHO’S HOT, WHO’S NOT

(Past five games)
United - W, L, W, L, W

Hawks - W, L, L, L, L

Heading into Sunday, both sides are searching for some consistency.

In front of a rowdy home crowd, we will be looking to register back-to-back wins for the first time since our opening two games.

To do this, we’ll need to buck our recent struggles against the Taipans, who have beaten United the last four times the two sides have matched up.

If Cairns want to continue this trend, they will need to turn around their own form, which has seen Adam Forde’s squad lose four consecutive games and drop to eighth on the competition table.

STARS COLLIDE

Across the first 6 Rounds of NBL25, no team has had a better defence than ours, having only allowed one opponent to score over 100 points across eight games.

That team however was the Cairns Taipans, who achieved this through the play of import guard Rob Edwards.

The American scored 23 points and cashed in on four three pointers, helping the visiting Taipans to victory.

While it will be a team effort to slow the scorer from up north, Chris Goulding will look to do whatever he can on the offensive end to help his side blaze away from Cairns.

Fresh off a season-high 25-point performance against Illawarra, look for CG43 to get open for long-range looks across the start of the contest.

GAME INFO

Who: Melbourne United vs Cairns Taipans

Tip-off: 4:30pm AEDT, Sunday 27 October, 2024

Where: John Cain Arena, Melbourne

Watch: 10 BOLD and ESPN via Kayo

Tickets: Available here