Taipans coach vows team will end tough season with a bang

“The fans, I’ve found over my time here, love a team that competes,” Kelly said.

“Win or lose, if your team competes, I’ve had people come up and say ‘great game’ after a game that I’m tearing my hair out from.

“They appreciate competing, so we’re playing for the fans in that way, but that’s how we always want to play — competing and playing to win.

“That’s the main thing, but the process of doing that is what we gauge ourselves on.

“Competing, defending and executing offensively, some of those things we definitely need to do better and do for 40 minutes.”

Kelly said doing that would hopefully give Cairns fans a performance they could be proud of, while also giving the

Taipans their best chance of winning.

The Snakes’ next assignment will be against the Sixers at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre next Tuesday. The side welcomed a nine-day turnaround between games as a result of the NBL’s schedule change earlier in the week.

“You deal with what you’re dealt but the week has been good in that Scott (Machado) has been able to deal with his cork and Majok (Deng) has been able to come back in and have a full week of training, and he’s been really good in that,” he said.

“Venky’s still getting used to being here after quarantine, getting in shape, so there’s a bunch of little things that we’ve been able to address with training this week.”

After focusing on themselves for much of the week, Kelly said the side would turn its attention to an Adelaide side that recently welcomed star big man Isaac Humphries back from injury.

“Their bigs — Isaac Humphries, Daniel Johnson is one of the best players in the league — are a real focus for us and how we attack them on both ends,” he said.

“We’ll throw a few different things DJ’s way hopefully to confuse him.”

Kelly said Majok Deng was a possibility to return from a partial MCL tear next week.

“There’s a chance for sure, that’s what I’m hoping,” he said. “But I don’t want to say it’s going to happen. He’s been out for a long time and he’s been really good about his rehab and he’s super excited to be back and we’re excited to have him, but we wouldn’t want to push him one game too soon and jeopardise all that work he’s done,” he said.