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Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United NBL26 Round 6 Tips - Routine win for Melbourne

Jeremy Darke

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Last updated: Thu 23 Oct 2025 11:44

Jeremy Darke 23 Oct 2025

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Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United expert predictions for Friday’s Round 6 NBL matchup
Tip-off is at 7:30 PM AEDT at Cairns Convention Centre
Chris Goulding and Jesse Edwards critical in Melbourne's strong performance.
Melbourne United remain undefeated, excelling at both ends

Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United NBL26 Round 6 Tips

Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United NBL25 Round 6 Expert Tips

Melbourne will breeze past Cairns using the road trip to the north to chalk up their eight win of the season and stay undefeated.

Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United NBL25 Round 6 Expert Tips
Head to Head
Cairns Taipans Form & Team News
Melbourne United Form & Team News
Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United Frequently Asked Questions

Melbourne are clinical and have a depth chart as good as any NBL team I have seen in years. They lead the league in offence and defence and are coming up against the Taipans, who are the polar opposite. It is not working in Cairns with injury derailing their season and their imports and star local have not found their mojo yet.

This is another dangerous spot for Cairns and the question here is by how much and the answer is a lot. Melbourne are putting up 100 a game and since Chris Goulding has been back, he has been in real fine touch averaging over one point per minute that he has been on the court. Another 20 minutes will be twenty points and a handful of threes.

Cairns’ root to their evil has been their lack of size without Sam Waardenburg and they are getting dominated heavily on the boards. Jesse Edwards has been a top rebounder since coming to the league averaging 10 boards per game in his last 4 matches. Expect that dominance to continue against the Taipans on Friday.

Melbourne have an average winning margin of 18.6 points this season.
Melbourne are averaging 100.9 points this season
Jesse Edwards has had 10+ rebounds in 3 of his last 4 matches.
Chris Goulding has dropped 11 threes in his first 3 matches of the season.

Head to Head

Last 5 Matches

Date	Home Team	Score	Line	Total Points
12/10/2025	MEL	MEL 95-60	MEL -11.5	U 185.0
26/12/2024	CAI	MEL 76-66	MEL -7.0	U 199.0
27/10/2024	MEL	MEL 106-63	MEL -11.0	U 179.5
6/10/2024	MEL	CAI 101-88	CAI +9.5	O 178.5
16/02/2024	CAI	CAI 97-88	CAI +7.0	O 183.5

Offensive & Defensive Rankings

CNS Off	Rank	Stat	Rank	MEL Def
77	10	PPG	1	82.3
42.9	6	RPG	1	38.7
40.8%	9	FG%	3	42.6%
27.5%	9	3P%	8	33.0%
15	9	TOV	2	14.9

CNS Def	Rank	Stat	Rank	MEL Off
92.3	7	PPG	1	100.9
46	9	RPG	1	46
43.1%	5	FG%	3	47.0%
25.7%	1	3P%	1	37.3%
7.3	10	TOV	5	12.3

Cairns Taipans Form & Team News

Not a lot of good to say about Cairns unfortunately as the Taipans head down a similar path to what they went down last season, sitting firmly on the bottom of the ladder after 5 straight losses. Their latest a 32-point loss in their Ignite Cup match against Perth on Wednesday.

Cairns have had some heavy defeats this season with an average losing margin of 23.8 points this year, failing to click at both ends. Cairns score just 77.1 points per game, the least of any team in the NBL, while giving up an average of 94.5 points ranked 9th, just think what that number would be if teams didn’t shut down while up by 30.

Imports Andrew Andrews and Admiral Schofield have shown their talent in moments, along with the early season Jack McVeigh, however, the Taipans ‘big guns’ have failed to gel and Adam Forde is not getting the best out of his troops at the moment.

Melbourne United Form & Team News

Melbourne are undefeated to start NBL26 and don’t look like slowing down soon. United are clearly the best team in the NBL and scary enough for the rest of the league, they look to be improving with each game played.

Two routine victories against the Bullets and the Breakers in Round 5 saw Melbourne move to 7-0 on the season with a shocking average winning margin of 18.6 points, blowing everyone out of the water.

United are top 3 in all of the key attacking and defensive categories dominating all over the court in shooting and rebounding at both ends. Their only weakness is perimeter defence where they rank 8th, but it obviously hasn’t hurt them at all.

What makes them so dangerous is that they rank first in the NBL averaging 100.9 point per game, however they do not have a single player averaging over 15 points besides Chris Goulding who has only played 3 games. Milton Doyle tops the bunch with 14.6 points with Walker, Edwards, Krebs and Delany all averaging over 12 points.

Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United Frequently Asked Questions

What time does Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United start?

Tip-off between Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United is at 7:30 PM AEDT, Friday, October 24

What channel is Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United on?

You can watch Cairns Taipans vs Melbourne United on ESPN via Kayo and Foxtel.

Verdict

Cairns Taipans v Melbourne United

Melbourne will cover the 11.5 points as the favourite with Melbourne scoring over their team total of 95.5 points. Chris Goulding will go for another 20 points and Jesse Edwards will have 10+ rebounds.

Melbourne -11.5

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Chris Goulding

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