Cairns didn't need to win the battle around the basket to beat Perth on Sunday. The Taipans simply made the Wildcats pay from the perimeter, riding Jack McVeigh's 36 points and eight three-pointers to a 100–92 win at RAC Arena. Jaylon Brown added 22 points and six triples, giving Cairns the sort of outside punch that made Perth's fourth consecutive defeat feel particularly costly.
McVeigh and Brown combined for 58 points and 14 three-pointers. That's an extraordinary concentration of long-range scoring, but Cairns weren't just running a two-man shooting exhibition. Shaun Bruce added 14 points and made all three of his attempts from deep, while Keanu Pinder supplied 10 points, seven rebounds and six assists. The spread of contributions mattered: Perth had to respect the shooters while Pinder kept the ball moving and the defence occupied.
The Taipans set the terms early. They knocked down eight threes in a 31-point opening quarter, then added another four before half-time to lead 53–48. McVeigh already had 23 points at the break. Perth hadn't been blown away, but it was chasing a team that could turn a small defensive lapse into three points almost immediately. Cairns then won the third quarter 24–17 to take a 77–65 lead into the last period.
Perth made its push, getting within five points with two and a half minutes remaining. Cairns answered with the next four points rather than allowing the home crowd to turn the finish into a scramble. The Wildcats scored 27 in the fourth, but the Taipans had built enough of a cushion to withstand the late pressure. The official NBL match report records the quarter-by-quarter momentum and individual contributions.
Elijah Pepper did his part for Perth with 26 points, including four three-pointers from six attempts. Kristian Doolittle added 20 points, eight rebounds, four assists and three steals; Jesse Wagstaff scored 14. Those are useful individual returns, but they couldn't offset Cairns' shooting volume. The Wildcats were competitive enough to threaten late, yet spent most of the evening reacting to the damage already done from outside.
For Cairns, this was an important response to successive losses against Melbourne United and Illawarra. It wasn't just the eight-point margin that mattered; the Taipans found a repeatable route to good offence through multiple shooting threats and Pinder's passing. McVeigh's scoring gave them the headline, but Brown's six threes and Bruce's flawless outside shooting meant Perth couldn't simply load up on the hottest hand.
Perth's wider pattern is harder to dismiss. The Wildcats have now lost to Sydney, Illawarra, Brisbane and Cairns in succession, conceding 99, 105, 109 and 100 points respectively. Their club fixture record makes the defensive trend clear. The issue isn't a single unlucky finish: opponents have repeatedly found enough scoring to leave Perth chasing games, even when its own offence gets into the 90s or beyond.
The next assignment comes quickly. Perth host Tasmania on Thursday, 12 November, while Cairns welcome Sydney on Friday, 13 November, according to the Taipans' fixture list. Perth need to make their defensive possessions more expensive for opponents, particularly beyond the arc. Cairns, meanwhile, have just shown how dangerous they can be when their shooters and playmakers are working together. Sunday's win was about more than McVeigh getting hot; it was about the Wildcats having too few answers when he did.
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