The Hawks and Melbourne produced the match of the tournament at the NBL Blitz with United taking out an intense shoot-out 106-99 that saw nine triples in the first quarter.

Import Stephen Holt went 7/9 from deep and promises to pack a potent one-two punch with the returning Chris Goulding.

The Hawks shot at an impressive 60 per cent (12/20) from long-range with Kirk Penney (2/3), Oscar Forman (2/2), Tim Coenraad (2/3) and Cody Ellis (2/3) all shooting at 66 per cent from the perimeter.

It’s a handy start but Beveridge said he will direct his side to put up even more shots against Melbourne on Sunday.

‘‘I want to play that way, I want it to be a shootout,” Beveridge said.

‘‘I want to get up and down the floor and get as may shots up as we can.

‘‘We are a great shooting team and we didn’t get enough shots up [against Cairns].

‘‘I think we only had 47 shots in the game which is just not us.

‘‘We showed some glimpses that we can very good but we have to continue to establish our identity of who we are and how we want to to play and that’ll take some time with a new group.

‘‘We want to aim for 80 shots a game which is very very high but when we’ve got a team that can shoot the ball that well that’s what we have to continue to strive for.