Jack McVeigh may have dealt the team he helped to a championship a cruel blow as he put up 40 points for the Cairns Taipans in a 96-93 overtime win over the Tasmania JackJumpers.
McVeigh, the star of Tasmania's NBL24 title triumph, made it tougher for the JackJumpers to hold on to sixth position as he racked up his big points haul, with 17-of-17 free-throw shooting, while playing all 45 minutes at the Cairns Convention Centre on Friday night.
The Snakes led most of the night before the JackJumpers hit the front thanks to Tyger Campbell in the fourth quarter, but McVeigh helped Cairns get to overtime and Kody Stattmann then scored seven of his team's 12 points as the Snakes claimed the win.
While the JackJumpers will continue to be without Will Magnay and Bryce Hamilton the rest of the season, Majok Deng returned from concussion and was on fire early with 10 points for a 12-8 lead.
The Snakes took over from there even without import point guard Andrew Andrews who failed a pre-game fitness test.
The Taipans went on a 20-3 run either side of quarter-time and were on top 54-39 at the half, and still by six at the end of three.
The JackJumpers got back in front with a 9-0 run midway through the fourth but McVeigh responded with a pair of threes to go to overtime where Stattmann came up huge.
The result moves Cairns two games clear of the bottom-placed Brisbane Bullets at 8-20 with Stattmann finishing with a career-best 18 points, four rebounds and two steals.
For Cairns, Mojave King had all 16 of his points in the first half with Kyrin Galloway contributing seven points, nine rebounds and two blocks, including a crucial late rejection on Anthony Drmic, and Kyle Adnam seven points and four assists.
Taipans coach Adam Forde was happy afterwards especially in the absence of Andrews.
"Wins have been far and few in between so any time we can do it in front of our home crowd who were loud tonight is good," he said.
"Credit to Tassie, I know they're battling some injuries and Tyger Campbell was cramping up there at the end because it's been a hot day today, and we were up 15 and they kept battling away and rattling our cage, but it was good we could get the momentum back."
Tasmania (12-17) are now just clinging to sixth spot ahead of the New Zealand Breakers (11-17), who they host on Sunday.
Deng stepped up for 28 points and eight rebounds with Josh Bannan delivering 18 points and 15 boards, David Johnson 17 points and four rebounds, Campbell 14 points and six assists, and Nick Marshall 11 points and seven rebounds.
JackJumpers coach Scott Roth knew playing catch up was always going to make it difficult.
"The obvious one was that we just started really poorly, and when you're down that many (15) the grind is real," he said.
"I'm still super proud of our guys to hold them to 30 points in the second half and they fought extremely hard to get the ball back in our court a little bit, and it was a tough battle and a good game if you're a player to want to be playing in."
