Bullets stand in way of Hawks' fourth straight win

A fourth straight win awaits the Illawarra Hawks if they can defeat the Brisbane Bullets on Thursday night at the WIN Entertainment.

If the 14-8 Hawks do claim a season’s first fourth straight win in their penultimate home fixture of NBL22, they will leapfrog the Perth Wildcats into third spot on the ladder.

Furthermore to that, if results go Illawarra’s way, including another victory over Melbourne at John Cain Arena on Saturday, the foundation club could sit in first place by the end of the round.

On the flip side, if the Bullets lose just one more game, they will officially be ruled out of a miracle playoff chance which at this stage relies on one of Illawarra, Perth or Sydney to go winless for the rest of the season.  

Brisbane have not lost to the Hawks or 36ers this season – the two teams they play this round.

Thursday’s round 17 clash, which will be 80’s themed, is the Bullets' first and only visit to Wollongong this season - with game three between these teams back in Brisbane in round 19. 

Since the pair’s first meeting back at Beaton Park on March 18, 1979 (which the won Bullets 96-94), they have played on 96 occasions, with the Bullets winning 56 times - including the round three clash 96-92 at Nissan Arena.

More recently, Thursday’s visitors come into the match on the back of two-straight nail-biters in round 17 - 101-100 win over New Zealand and 84-82 loss to Tasmania.

Furthermore, if you combined the last 20 seconds of both games last round, the Bullets outscored their opponents 14-2.

That win against the Breakers is just the Bullets’ fourth from its past 15 games, starting the year 4-3.

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On Sunday, the Hawks were coached by Jacob Jackomas who became the first interim coach in NBL history to win all four quarters of his debut game - which capped a remarkable 8-2 stretch for the club during its last 10 matches, with the only two defeats coming against Tasmania.

A big part of that hot form has been the strong play of US import Antonius Cleveland.

The Memphis product has scored 20 points in each of his last two games after scoring 20 points just twice in his first 20 - seeing his points/game spike from 13.2 (first 17 games) to 17.4 (last five games)

Of note, Cleveland earned himself 14 free-throws against United (made 10) which is the most by any player in a game in NBL22.  

Much like Cleveland, Brisbane’s Robert Franks is one of the form players in the NBL. 

Over his last six games, the Washington State alum is averaging 23.0 points and 9.2 rebounds per game while shooting at 62 per cent from the field and an even more incredible 53 per cent from long range (19-from-36). 

Franks has led Brisbane in scoring in their past seven games in a row but it must be mentioned that he has fouled out in two of his last three games.  

Lamar Patterson is not having the same impact though, having not scored 20 in his last eight games and a worrying per cent from long range over his past six games (1-from-17).

Finally, Brisbane leads the NBL in turnovers at 15.3 per game while the Hawks average the least at 9.8 

Only four teams in NBL history have averaged less than 10 turnovers per game – Nunawading in 1982 (9.5), Hawks this season (9.8), Cairns in 2015 (9.8) and Perth last season (9.9).

Tip-off for the round 18 clash is at 7.30pm AEDT.