On Friday night, they put on a confident show for the 5,089-strong crowd with a 103-75 win over an out-of-form Melbourne United.
Admitting that over the past few weeks they have had “these flashes of brilliance and then these moments of confusion”, coach Adam Forde said it was something they had focused on in the lead up to the match.
“We talked about it during the week and we made some adjustments on how we want to do things defensively and on the offensive end,” he said.
However Sunday’s game was a much closer affair, with the enthusiastic crowd of 5,187 spectators left on the edge of their seats right up to the final siren.
While the Kings managed a narrow 75-73 victory over the Cairns Taipans, they squandered an early lead and in the third quarter they let the visitors turn the tables with a 15-0 run that pushed them into a two-point lead, and turned the final quarter into a slugfest.
Trailing Cairns by a point with 90 seconds to go, Shaun Bruce put the Kings in front with an epic three-pointer and some brilliant, but also lucky, defence kept them there at the final siren.
Coach Adam Forde admitted the win was “real ugly”.
“Credit to Cairns – they played Perth then took a flight here so we can appreciate how tough that is,” he said.
“But that’s no excuse for us, it was polar opposites of how we went about it at the offensive end against Melbourne.”
Staying at home, the Kings will next play a grand final rematch against the Perth Wildcats on Sunday, March 28.
