Snakes survive Sunshine Stoush thriller

They might be the bottom two teams in the NBL but they played out a Monday night pre-HoopsFest thriller with the Cairns Taipans surviving 31 points from Hunter Maldonado for the Brisbane Bullets to win 88-83.

The Sunshine Stoush battle was originally scheduled for Saturday night at the Cairns Convention Centre before ex-Tropical Cyclone Koji intervened, but they were able to play 48 hours later with the winner trying to take a step away from the wooden spoon.

The Taipans were in a degree of control in the game for most of the evening including leading by as much as 16 points despite losing key big man Sam Waardenburg to an ankle injury after he already had 13 points.

The Bullets kept on coming led by 31 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals from Maldonado, and they had a chance to force overtime on the last possession only for Tohi Smith-Milner to turn down his three-point attempt.

Instead Terry Taylor had to force one up that was no chance and the Snakes held on for the five-point win to make it back-to-back victories and to improve to 7-17 and leave the Bullets clearly in last spot at 6-19.

While it was back-to-back wins for Cairns, the downside was an ankle injury to Waardenburg, who missed the first 11 rounds of the season after undergoing right ankle surgery.

His evening was cut short when he rolled his left ankle before exiting the game with 5:46 left in the third quarter, at which point Cairns led 58-46.

The Taipans were still able to hold out for the five-point victory with Jack McVeigh finishing with 25 points, six rebounds, six assists and two steals on 11/18 shooting.

Kyrin Galloway also had 19 points and five rebounds with 14 of those points in the opening half.

Import point guard Andrew Andrews was tremendous again with 13 assists paired with 18 points of which 13 came in the fourth quarter including three bombs from downtown including a four-point play.

It's a fifth straight defeat for Brisbane but their charge was led by recently signed import point guard Maldonado who started the season with the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

He went 13/18 from the foul line to take more free throws than Cairns did as a team on his way to 31 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals.

Taylor added 22 points, eight rebounds and three steals but the Bullets just didn’t have enough help in the absence of Tyrell Harrison, Javon Freeman-Liberty, Sam McDaniel, Dakota Mathias, Lamar Patterson and Casey Prather.

Waardenburg was the dominant force early, with 11 first-quarter points to catapult the Snakes to a 28-16 cushion at the first change.

An 11-0 surge by the Taipans either side of quarter-time blew the margin out to 32-16.

The Snakes went into half-time leading on the back of a combined 37 points on 17/21 shooting from Waardenburg, Galloway and McVeigh as they shot 59 per cent as a team to 37 from the Bullets.

Brisbane finally played some defence after the main break, while a rampant Maldonado and Taylor put on a two-man, downhill show in the third as the visitors closed the gap to 68-62 at three quarter-time.

The Bullets continued to chip away bravely and tied the game at 81-all on a Tohi Smith-Milner trey.

But down by three with 11.6 seconds left, Brisbane couldn't nail the last clunky possession, with Taylor missing a three before McVeigh stole the ball for a lay-up on the buzzer.

Both teams now join the rest of the league in Perth this week to be part of HoopsFest with the Bullets first up on Thursday night against the Sydney Kings before the Taipans take on the New Zealand Breakers on Saturday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2025/26

CAIRNS TAIPANS 88 (McVeigh 25, Galloway 19, Andrews 18)

BRISBANE BULLETS 83 (Maldonado 31, Taylor 22, Smith-Milner 9)

BOX SCORE