It’s do or die for the Cairns Taipans as when they play the Melbourne Tigers in the final round of the NBL at the Cairns Convention Centre tonight.

I’ve put the actual scenarios below for what could take place after this round, but put simply, it comes to this – if Cairns beat the Tigers tonight, they will finish either third or fourth and play finals.

If they lose, their season is done. That pretty much means that this clash should be a beauty and will bring a finals atmosphere to Cairns one week early.

The Taipans should get this one for more reasons than the stated as the Tigers are the limping wounded and will be without American imports showman Jonny Flynn and Seth Scott, who dominated their last meeting against the Taipans in Melbourne with 21 and 19 points respectively.

The Tigers will no doubt come out all guns blazing as they also want to play finals, but we should finish their 2013 campaign in style with a 20 point flogging!

After Andrew Gaze predicted Cairns as capable of shaking up the finals on last week’s show, Kez, Muffy and I be chatting with Taipans coach Aaron Fearne on the Saturday Morning Sports Show on PortFM 90.9FM between 9am and 11am tomorrow.

If the Taipans win, you’ll hear the inside scoop about how the boys plan to cause an upset in the playoffs. If they lose, we’ll probably hear about a disappointing end to the season - and that’s if he even answers the phone at all!

I’m tipping the former: that we’ll finish fourth and then have to tackle the almighty Kiwis and rattle them over the ditch. There’s no harder task in the game, but this is where legends are created. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it and concentrate on getting the Tigers tonight first.

Here’s what could happen this weekend:

If Wollongong beat Adelaide then they'll lock up third place. If they lose, they sweat on other results to see if they’ve finish third, fourth or fifth. Should make them pretty motivated!

If Cairns beat Melbourne, they'll finish third or fourth. If they lose, they'll finish fifth and miss out on finals.

Melbourne have to beat both Cairns and Townsville to make the finals and even then will rely on results from other games; Townsville have to beat both Sydney and Melbourne to make finals and also will have to rely on results from other games and Sydney have to beat Townsville to make finals and then will also rely on results from other games.

The above scenarios assume no changes in points splits for the various head-to-head combinations that may arise out of next week's results.

Go Snakes!