Maldonado, Taylor shine for Bullets

Hunter Maldonado showed what he's capable of and Terry Taylor had his best NBL performance but it wasn’t quite enough for the Brisbane Bullets with the Cairns Taipans holding on to win 88-83.

After the game had to be rescheduled from Saturday night to Monday at the Cairns Convention Centre thanks to ex-Tropical Cyclone Koji, the third Sunshine Stoush of the NBL season turned out to be a thrilling contest.

The Bullets were playing catch up for most of the night and did find themselves 12 points down at half-time on the back Kyrin Galloway, Sam Waardenburg and Jack McVeigh combining for 37 points on 17/21 shooting.

Brisbane stayed in touch courtesy of the 15 points with 12 free-throw attempts from Maldonado before Taylor stepped up with 12 points in the third quarter, and it set up a thrilling finish.

The Bullets only went 3/16 for the game from three-point territory, but two of those came in the last two minutes to Alex Ducas and Tohi Smith-Milner to give them a chance, but they couldn’t quite close it out with Cairns ending up winning by five points.

Hunter Maldonado was just playing his second game with the Bullets and put the team on his back to finish with 31 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals on the back of shooting 9/16 from the field and 13/18 at the free-throw line.

Terry Taylor delivered 12 points alone in the third quarter on the way to 22 for the game along with eight rebounds and three steals.

Tohi Smith-Milner also had nine points and three assists, Jacob Holt eight points and four rebounds, Alex Ducas seven points and four boards, and captain Mitch Norton six points, five rebounds and two assists in over 36 minutes.

Jack McVeigh finished with 25 points, six rebounds and six assists in the win for Cairns with Kyrin Galloway adding 19 points and five boards, Andrew Andrews 18 points and 13 assists, and Sam Waardenburg 13 points before a third quarter ankle injury.

The Taipans had the better of the start to open up a 17-7 lead in the first quarter before the Bullets did respond with a 9-4 run with the first four points from Hunter Maldonado and then the next five from Tohi Smith-Milner.

However, the Snakes finished the quarter scoring the last seven points to head into quarter-time leading 28-16 on the back of shooting 65 per cent from the floor to just 29 from the Bullets.

After Cairns scored the first four points of the second period, Brisbane answered with the next six but the Taipans were able to maintain their advantage the rest of the half.

Despite the 15 points with 12 free-throw attempts for the Bullets from Maldonado, the rest of the team had just 20 points on 7/22 shooting with the Snakes going into the main break leading 47-35 with a combined 37 points on 17/21 shooting from Sam Waardenburg, Kyrin Galloway and Jack McVeigh.

It was then a rough start to the second half from Brisbane with Cairns scoring six quick points to push back out to a 16-point lead, but a timeout from Darryl McDonald did steady things for the Bullets and in particular lit a fire under Terry Taylor.

Taylor hit the team's first three-pointer of the game after they missed their first seven attempts and he would end up scoring 12 points in the rest of the third period.

Brisbane put up 27 points as a team too with Maldonado adding another 10 points and that saw them cut the Taipans advantage to six by three quarter-time.

After Cairns went back up 10 early in the fourth quarter after a four-point play from Andrew Andrews, Brisbane hit back with the next six points to cut the deficit to four, and eventually a triple from Alex Ducas made it a three-point ball game with two minutes on the clock.

Tohi Smith-Milner then hit another from behind the arc 40 seconds later and having made one three ball in the opening 38 minutes, the Bullets had two in less than one and the scores were all level.

Andrews responded with another triple for Cairns but Maldonado made a pair of free throws in the last minute before it was the Taipans who did hold on with the Bullets unable to land one last blow to force overtime.

The Bullets now will join the rest of the league in Perth this week for HoopsFest and they will be part of the first game on Thursday night when they take on the Sydney Kings at RAC Arena.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2025/26

BRISBANE BULLETS 83 (Maldonado 31, Taylor 22, Smith-Milner 9)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 88 (McVeigh 25, Galloway 19, Andrews 18)

BOX SCORE