Melbourne heed Cairns lessons ahead of NBL Finals

Chris Goulding’s 1 of 7 shooting from 3-point range epitomised Melbourne’s woes against Cairns.

Melbourne United coach Dean Vickerman has welcomed a home clash with top-four hopefuls Illawarra as a perfect tune-up for the NBL Finals.

First-placed Melbourne are reeling from a road loss to Cairns on Friday, when only a final-quarter fightback prevented a shocking blowout.

United reduced a 25-point deficit to just four points with three minutes left to play but ultimately fell short in a third loss from as many games against the Taipans this season.

Vickerman is eyeing a bounce-back win over the Hawks at John Cain Arena on Sunday as a platform for Melbourne’s championship assault.

Melbourne (19-8) have already locked up top spot, while Illawarra (14-13) are clinging to fourth spot going into their last game of the regular season.

“Illawarra are shooting for a top-four spot, so there’s no better preparation for a Finals series than playing them on the end of this road trip,” Vickerman said after his team’s 97-88 defeat at the Cairns Convention Centre.

“We’ll get home and hopefully play really well … but what I saw from them the other night was they wanted to play really fast and got around the net at high speed.

“We’re going to have to be great with our defensive transition.

“There were times in the first half (against Cairns) when I didn’t think we were great at that.”

Defensive transition wasn’t Vickerman’s only concern on Friday night, when Melbourne missed their first 17 three-point attempts and finished 4-of-26.

Sharpshooter Chris Goulding was 1-of-7 from long range, while United shot the ball at 30 per cent from the foul line in the first half.

Their relatively low pressure on the ball allowed Cairns to build a double-digit lead early and take a firm grip on the contest through the first three periods.

“We weren’t good enough in our communication of what we were trying to achieve,” Vickerman said.

“You want to try to win every game and that’s what we’re about, but we’re going to take the lessons out of this one.

“Being down on the road, there’s a good spirit that we played with to try and fight back.”

Vickerman was adamant it wasn’t all doom and gloom for United in Cairns.

“We played the right way in the third quarter and we just didn’t reward ourselves,” he said.

“We moved the basketball so much sharper, our communication was better defensively, but you’ve just got to reward yourself by making some shots and we didn’t.

“It gets to six minutes to go and we take our shot in the fourth quarter and everyone feels a little bit better about the defence that they’re playing because the ball went in the hole.

“We need some of those rewards earlier in the game.”