Well, the National Basketball League playoffs start this Thursday night and the Cairns Taipans will not feature after a heart-breaking two point loss against Melbourne Tigers last Friday.

They had to simply win against the Tigers on Friday night and they could not get it done!

With all due respect it was a great game of basketball from tip off to end with many lead changes, but our Snakes should never have lost it.

Two years ago, Ron Dorsey hit a trey to win us game two of a Grand Final series against the New Zealand Breakers, which was the most exciting end to a game I’ve ever seen.

On the flipside, Friday’s last 30 seconds was the most disappointing. Scores were tied, the Snakes had the ball coach Aaron Fearne had a play drawn up to get us home – the shot clock had no differential.

It really should have been a win or, at worst, overtime (I love overtime), but what happened was just inexcusable.

Alex Loughton managed to set an illegal screen on the defender of Jamar Wilson and with seven seconds left, the Tigers scored and stole the bacon. The look on Fearney’s face said it all, as in that situation how can you not even get a shot off?  It was a mental error by Loughton and I’m sure he’d like that time back to get it right.

But what’s done is done, and we must now hope the Taipans hierarchy get the recruiting right for the 2013/14 NBL season. Personal request: please get a seven foot beast, as we were way too small this season.

A massive congratulations must go out to the Taipans’ Cam Gliddon who was awarded Rookie of the Year honours at the NBL MVP awards this week. This kid is going be a star and luckily he’s contracted to us for the next two years. I’ll never forget his MVP game against Perth two weeks ago where he shut down Kevin Lisch, as well as amassing 26 points (including the game winner), which was a must win to keep us in the play-off picture.

Sydney and Wollongong were the fortunate teams to make the finals, but I doubt either will be there long.  NZ and Perth should make light work of both before battling it out themselves. I’m going stick with Perth in 3 games to win this year’s championship.