Chris Goulding leads the Tigers to defeat the Cairns Taipans in a spectacular display of skill with 34 points

The Melbourne Tigers managed to defeat the Cairns Taipans at Cairns on Saturday night lead by Chris "Bubbles" Goulding who showed his array of offensive skills across the game with some excellent drives, post ups and shot from long range, he finished with 34 points, 2 assists, 5 rebounds and 1 steal. The Tiger's walked away with the win 86-74.

Chris Goulding game out firing from the start with some strong offense, but Cairns had all the answers they needed with some nice inside passes from Demetri McCamey into Mitch Young and Cam Tragadh. The Tigers managed to hold the lead to close the quarter with a nice drive by Mark Worthington who passed it to Ayinde Ubaka who drained the 3 pointer closing the quarter 23-27.

The second quarter had some nice plays with a second decent dunk from Cairn's Mitch young and Lucas Walker nearly did a Tiggs attempting a big dunk but he at least managed to get it to roll in. But it was Gouldings play making that kept the Tigers in front with some nice spin movies around Jamar Wilson. 2/3 of Melbournes scoring was coming from either Chris Goulding or Mark Worthington who also had abig game with 13 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocked shots
. Goulding was showing his potential with some great penetration into the key way and excellent passes to the open shooters. Again Ubaka closed the quarter with a nice drive to hole keeping the Tigers with a 4 point lead 41-45.

The third quarter was when Goulding stepped it up getting 14 of his 34 in this 10 minute stretch and the Tigers had a 10 point lead by the half way point of the quarter. Cairns on the other hand only managed to score 16 for the quarter. Jamar Wilson who finished with 17 for Cairns managed to keep them alive but the onslaught from Goulding continued with 2 back to back 3 point plays.

The final quarter was played out with Cairns trying to hold on but couldn't pull back the 10 point defecit to much less then 8. Mark Worthington made a huge block on a Sean Bruce fast break which it looked like he lined up from the half way line. The Taipans missing Cam Gliddon looked a lot shallower and lacked the outside shooting that they can be so deadly from. Lets hops he can come back as strong as ever and help the Taipans with some confidence they looked to be lacking on Saturday.

In a post game interview referring to his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers summer camp Goulding stated, "it let me know where my game needs to go"
It looks like it really has as he is developing into one of the great NBL players of this generation, if he can keep up the consistency. Maybe Andrew Gaze has been giving him some pointers in Melbourne.

Melbourne Tigers 86 (Goulding 34, Worthington 13)
Cairns Taipans 74 (Wilson 17, Tragardh Weigh 10)