Taipans happy playing 'party spoilers'

The loss on New Year's Eve for the Cairns Taipans was always going to be a turning point one way or another, and coach Adam Forde gives his players credit for continuing to put in the work to potentially upset some parties in the run home.

Having already beaten the league-leading Illawarra Hawks to snap their losing streak, and then going close to knocking off the fourth placed Sydney Kings, the Taipans have the chance to help shape the top six in the run home.

That starts at home on Tuesday night to the South East Melbourne Phoenix before visiting the Brisbane Bullets on Friday, ahead of hosting the Adelaide 36ers.

Forde wouldn’t mind if the Snakes end up playing spoilers in the run home.

"I just love how the boys go about the day to day but we're playing with house money," Forde said.

"All the stresses of this part of the season for other teams we probably had that around two months ago trying to navigate the wins and losses.

"I joked with the coaches that 'let's be the guy that rolls up to the party, clogs up your toilet, steals your beer and leaves, and everyone wonders why you invited him. Let's be that.' We've got less than a month left and we've got nothing to lose."

During the Taipans' 15-game losing streak there was a string of games they had chances to win in fourth quarters - including eight single figure defeats. For the most part, Forde couldn’t question how hard his team was competing.

They were doing it without key players and he felt the pressure of the losing streak was leading them to playing tight late in games. Then the floor fell out beneath them against the Breakers at home on New Year's Eve.

New Zealand had lost eight straight themselves, had just lost Parker Jackson-Cartwright to suspension and it was a game where the Taipans were heavily favoured to win.

What resulted was a disappointing 24-point loss and it had the potential to lead to a horror last 10 games of the season for the Snakes if it was a sign of things to come – or it could be the line in the sand moment.

That's exactly what it proved to be and the Taipans are ever so close to have beaten both the Hawks and Kings on the road since in two performances full of heart and spirit.

Cairns did beat the Hawks last Friday and then were right in the contest in a tight loss to the Kings on Sunday. Forde is glad to see his playing group getting back to enjoying their basketball.

"It's a high pressure environment and I know I can coach the guys a particular way, and if you have guys with years of experience and who have experienced what it's like being in Europe with a coach grilling them and the job being on the line week to week, then it builds that resilience," Forde said.

"But I've got a young group and there's certain things you approach with a particular demeanour and you can see how it shifts the attitude of the group.

"The last thing I want to do is suffocate the fun out of basketball so the biggest shift for me was to reconnect with the boys more on a fun level, and remind them why they picked up a basketball at the start.

"It's about using that to motivate them because they are doing all the right things, so sometimes if you are more results driven that burden can weigh on you. The last thing I want to do is keep kicking them when they're down."

While Forde is proud of the way his playing group has conducted themselves throughout the season, he knows that because it's such a young group there are going to be tough lessons learned.

Import trio Rob Edwards, Pedro Bradshaw and Tanner Groves are still young to international basketball, and Taran Armstrong, Sam Waardenburg, Kyrin Galloway and Akoldah Gak are in the formative years as professionals.

Because of that, Forde has never wanted to berate his players or ride them hard. 

"The boys have been uber professional and I know we have a lot of guys still finding their ways in their career, so it's important that you don’t want to get caught up in the losses," Forde said. 

"You want to get caught up in the process and sticking to it day to day, and they've all done a great job with that. 

"This is a learning experience for everybody and you don’t want to walk away from this season and learn nothing from it. We're going to get some real good mental calluses from it that we want to use moving forward."