Bullets hit hard as the Snakes and injuries bite

CAIRNS have kept their finals hopes alive with an 83-80 home win in the NBL Sunshine Stoush with Queensland rivals Brisbane.

The injury-depleted Bullets were without Perrin Buford and Anthony Petrie and it showed last night.

The men in maroon looked for much of the match like a shell of the team that had already beaten the Taipans three times this season.

Brisbane started well behind a six-point first quarter from Daniel Kickert.

Despite the big going home with a season high of 27 points, though, the southerners found themselves down by as many as 17 in the second quarter as Cairns began to click.

Veteran Snake Alex Loughton turns 35 this year but the forward again proved worthy of another contract after scoring 22 points, his fourth consecutive match finishing with more than 20.

Taipans point guard duo Jarrad Weeks and Dayshon ‘Scoochie’ Smith also worked well together in their third match as an experimental pair, posting 15 and 13 points respectively.

But just as the match looked won, Brisbane led a late fightback to scare the home side as former Taipans MVP Travis Trice tried to become the heartbreaker with 23 points.

He cut the lead to just three with 8 seconds to go and then Cairns Captain Cam Gliddon failed to find a man on an inbound pass on halfway.

The error handed Trice a corner three-point shot to tie it up but it rimmed out, just.

Bullets coach Andre Lemanis couldn’t fault his men for fighting until the end.

“Down 17 we could have imploded, it shows a lot of character to come back the way we did,” he said.

Brisbane will host Adelaide tomorrow, while Cairns face a tough week with trips to New Zealand and Adelaide.