Snakes do it again over United

The Cairns Taipans shot the lights out in the first half to set up continuing their stunning winning run against Melbourne United spoiling their home coming for Sunday's 101-88 victory.

The Snakes were fresh off beating the reigning champion Tasmania JackJumpers on Friday night and made it a perfect weekend with a fourth consecutive win against Melbourne at John Cain Arena on Sunday.

Cairns ended up shooting 13/29 from three-point land with Kyrin Galloway making 4/6 for 16 points, four assists, three steals and three rebounds and Rob Edwards 4/6 for 23 points.

Taran Armstrong was outstanding again as point guard with 14 points, six rebounds and four assists.

Sam Waardenburg added 14 points and eight rebounds for Cairns with Akoldah Gak stepping up in the absence of Tanner Groves for 14 points and eight boards with the Snakes outscoring United by 21 points in his 24 minutes.

Taipans coach Adam Forde was pleased with the two-win weekend against the two teams from last season's Championship Series, but far from content.

"We've got to stay consistent with what we're doing," he said.

"Now that there's a little bit of, let's say it's called belief, we have to stick with what we're doing.

"Monday's review is just going to be as bad as if it was a loss because there's a lot of areas we need to work on."

Melbourne were fresh off a record 29-point win on Perth on Friday, but couldn’t back it up in their first home game of NBL25 despite 22 points with 5/13 three-point shooting from Chris Goulding.

Jack White ended up with 15 points and 11 rebounds, Ian Clark 12 points, and Marcus Lee 11 points and four boards, but Shea Ili wasn’t able to have the same influence at both ends he did against the Wildcats despite 10 points and five assists.

"We're not expecting to play our best basketball in October, that's for sure, but how we defended on Friday night ... we were trying to emulate that today," White said.

"The energy of being on your home floor for the first time this season, you want to make a statement.

"And especially against a team that had success against us last year, we want to come in and play the right way and get a win. So we're disappointed with that."

Melbourne shot out of the blocks in their home opener leading 7-2 after a Chris Goulding three ball but the Taipans responded with triples from Rob Edwards and Kyrin Galloway to set the tone for a high octane opening half.

United were still leading 27-23 by quarter-time and then 47-42 shortly before half-time, but then the Taipans put on a blistering finish to the half with 16 points in the last three minutes.

That included another triple from Edwards and two more from Galloway for the visitors to be leading 58-54 at the break on the back of shooting a blistering 11/18 from downtown for the half with Galloway having four of those for 16 points.

Goulding was keeping Melbourne in touch with four threes of his own for 19 points and he hit his fifth three ball of the game to start the second half, but the Snakes continued to score at will up the other end.

The Taipans were still leading 80-71 by three quarter-time and there would be no stopping them making it a fourth straight win against Melbourne stretching for almost two full years.

The Taipans now have a quick turnaround ahead of hosting the Perth Wildcats on Thursday night while United have a full week before being at home to the Adelaide 36ers.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

MELBOURNE UNITED 88 (Goulding 22, White 15, Clark 12)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 101 (Edwards 23, Galloway 16, Armstrong 14, Gak 14)

BOX SCORE