Heat eye titles peril by Cairns

THE Townsville Heat are the defending champions with the home court advantage, but coach Rodney Anderson knows better than to underestimate Cairns in their QBL grand final series.

The Heat have won both North Queensland derbies this season – including a 37-point thumping in Townsville – but the Marlins have been the giant killers to reach the title decider from sixth.

Cairns overcame a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat top seed Mackay in last weekend’s semi-final and Anderson said the Heat would treat their rivals with the respect they deserve in tonight’s opening game at the Murray Basketball Centre.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Jamie O’Loughlin, the coach, and these guys have a lot of respect for me and our team,” he said. “They might have come from sixth but last year we won it from third, and we won it on the road. It’s definitely able to be done.

“These guys are really super talented; they’re playing a great style of basketball and we definitely won’t be underestimating them at all.”

The Marlins are playing a vastly different style to their regular season clashes with the Heat, but Anderson felt his side could still take lessons from those performances with a fast start.

“We were very, very good that night (in their 107-70 victory) and really took them out of the game early,” he said.

“They’ve got a lot of confidence coming into this game, so if we give them a really big hit early, hopefully their confidence drops a bit. We have to make sure we keep our foot on the throat and finish the job off.”

The Heat almost let their title defence slip away against the Brisbane Capitals last weekend and import Justin Baker said having the home crowd behind them was a massive advantage.

Game 1 of the men’s grand final series tips off at 8pm.

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