Game Preview: Taipans v Wildcats

Making their only appearance at RAC Arena for the 2024-25 campaign, and their first in nearly 12 months, the Taipans will be missing Taran Armstrong who did not travel with the team due to back soreness, with development player Kody Stattmann taking his place in the lineup.

Where and When

Saturday, January 25 at RAC Arena, Perth (7:00pm AEST)

How to Follow

Watch: Live on ESPN

Live Updates: Taipans X

Stats: Box Score

What’s Already Happened

Their Last Battle: Cairns Taipans (92) v Perth Wildcats (128) in Round 12

Coming off a six-point victory against the ladder leaders on Thursday night, the Taipans will be looking to blast out of the gates early to earn themselves an early lead, just like they did against Illawarra.

In an explosive first quarter in which they outscored their visitors 31-17, Cairns were able to shut down the Hawk’s offensive – allowing them to combine for no assists in the first quarter, and only one in the second term.

WATCH YOUR HEAD 😤

Alex is putting on a SHOW!

📲 @cairnstaipans | 📺 @espn pic.twitter.com/t9gmSHtDeZ

— Cairns Taipans (@CairnsTaipans) January 23, 2025

With all five starters reaching double digits – as well as Kyle Adnam off the bench on a night when he reached 500 career assists – the Taipans were able to efficiently put up points, whilst crashing the glass hard at both ends to earn themselves extra chances.

Whilst able to control the game early in their last appearance against the Wildcats, an offensive onslaught by Bryce Cotton and Dylan Windler handed them the lead in the third term, with Perth keeping the pressure on to blast out to an easy win.

Finishing with a plus/minus of +31 the last time that he faced Cairns, Windler has been instrumental in the Wildcats charge for the post season, with the team on an 8-0 winning streak when he’s posted more than 15 points.

However, with the guard missing from their Saturday night fixture, Perth will need to find another guard who is able to make major contributions to the scoreboard.

Leading the league in scoring, Cottons stands as the obvious choice, however the American will be entering the battle after coming off two disappointing games where he shot the ball at only 27.5% across 73 minutes of court time.

The next highest scoring guard is Elijah Pepper who has averaged 8.2 points across the campaign, with the Wildcats more than likely to look to the interior to tick the scoreboard over – namely Kristian Doolittle and former-Taipans Keanu Pinder.

Player to Watch

Leading the scoring on both ends of the court on Thursday night, Rob Edwards will draw a significant amount of attention from the Wildcats as the main guard that they’ll need to defend with Taran Armstrong missing from the clash. However, the American drew the same attention against Illawarra as the only guard in the starting lineup whilst Armstrong remained on the bench and was still able to put up 22 points at 61%.

Facing the Wildcats for the third time of his NBL career, Edwards has averaged 22 points and 6.5 boards against Perth and will be one of the men designated to guard Bryce Cotton who has averaged just shy of 40 points across those two games. However, the Taipan is also coming off a night where no Hawks scored over 17 points, with the four guards who hit the court averaging just over 11 points.

ROB 😤 EDWARDS 😤

📲 @cairnstaipans | 📺 @espn pic.twitter.com/bwrT7JgU8g

— Cairns Taipans (@CairnsTaipans) January 23, 2025

What's Been Said

Taipans Head Coach Adam Forde:

“Taran just flagged a bit of a back complaint – nothing major, just a level of uncomfortableness. He tried to get through shoot around, and then we had the physio get through some treatment, but in the end he just wasn’t able to move naturally.

“It’s a long flight to Perth and we probably won’t take him, we’ll just give him this weekend easing into next week, knowing that we’ve got two of the longest road trips after this long road trip to Perth.

“Maybe the mindset is that we’re not playing for postseason. But this is still probably going to be a mental hurdle for a lot of these young guys, because we still found ourselves in a bit of foul trouble, we still missed some bunnies at the rim and missed some foul shots, but we’ve gotten over the hurdle now because we’re just playing with a sense of freedom.”

Wildcats Head Coach John Rillie:

“What we touched on is that we control our own destiny, and we can only worry about what’s in front of us and the next opponent is Cairns, and that’s all that we can worry about.

“The minute that you get in the scenarios where you’re worrying about other people, that’s when you lose focus of what we are really about.

“They’ve won three of their last five games, and like all teams they’re dealing with injuries in different situations, but they’re definitely playing a better brand of basketball over the last couple of games, so we’d better not be disrespectful.”

The Lineups

Taipans

PG – Rob Edwards / Kyle Adnam

SG – Pedro Bradshaw / Jonah Antonio

SF – Alex Higgins-Titsha / Kyrin Galloway / Kody Stattmann

PF – Sam Waardenburg / AK Gak

C – Tanner Groves / Dillon Stith

Wildcats

PG – Ben Henshall / Elijah Pepper / Dontae Russo-Nance

SG – Bryce Cotton / Michael Harris

SF – Hyrum Harris / Thomas Gerovich

PF – Kristian Doolittle / David Okwera / Todd Withers

C – Izan Almansa / Keanu Pinder / Jesse Wagstaff

Ins and Outs 

Taipans

Ins – Alex Higgins-Titsha, Kody Stattmann

Outs – Taran Armstrong (back)

Wildcats

Ins – Dontae Russo-Nance, Thomas Gerovich

Outs – Dylan Windler (eye), Tai Webster (hamstring)