Hawks lock up Breakers and bag big road win

The Result

Illawarra Hawks 75 - NZ Breakers 67

The Story

The Hawks entered Tasmania intent on keeping their 20-year unbeaten record in the Apple Isle in tact against a resurgent NZ Breakers outfit - and after an early onslaught from the home side, they pulled away for a desperately needed win.

It was the Hawks first game in over a week, but you wouldn't have known it the way Tyler Harvey started, with the American import showing no signs of rust on his way to eight first quarter points.

Sam Froling continued his surge towards the Most Improved Player award, dropping in six points early on as the big man was aggressive from the outset.

It was the Breakers who had the better of the opening term though - leading 23-18 at the first break after shooting an incredible 64% through the first 10 minutes.

The Webster brothers were at their damaging best in the opening half, combining for 17 points through the first 15 minutes as the Breakers maintained a five-point advantage.

Harvey was the Hawks chief destroyer, leading all scorers with 15 points on 5/7 shooting at the Silverdome, with the Hawks skipper AJ Ogilvy ably supporting his star guard as the Kiwis extended their lead to seven.

American duo Justin Simon and Justinian Jessup both opened their accounts in the second stanza as the Hawks rallied back late in the half to trim the lead to two. Harvey continuing to torch the Breakers with another ridiculous half of hoops (21 points) - the Breakers and Hawks tied 40-40 at the main break.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lighting it up <a href="https://twitter.com/YoungTRaaw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YoungTRaaw</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IllawarraProud?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IllawarraProud</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FlyAsOne?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FlyAsOne</a> <a href="https://t.co/pWCBOj6Exs">pic.twitter.com/pWCBOj6Exs</a></p>— Illawarra Hawks Basketball (@illawarrahawks) <a href="https://twitter.com/illawarrahawks/status/1389168199325741058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The third term didn't reach the lofty offensive heights of the opening half as both sides spluttered their way through a clunky term of basketball.

Only 13 points were scored through six minutes, but as Harvey cooled off, back court running mate Justinian Jessup got busy. The Boise State product dropping six points for the frame as both side's traded blows.

Deng Deng was having a rare off night, but he finished off a fast break for his first points of the contest - before Dan Grida also opened his account with a nice finish.

Simon adding another bucket courtesy of this strong finish as the Hawks went on a 7-0 run to finish the quarter in front 58-57.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">TUFF <a href="https://twitter.com/simon_Says_so?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@simon_Says_so</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IllawarraProud?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IllawarraProud</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FlyAsOne?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FlyAsOne</a> <a href="https://t.co/0gEN3hHPwY">pic.twitter.com/0gEN3hHPwY</a></p>— Illawarra Hawks Basketball (@illawarrahawks) <a href="https://twitter.com/illawarrahawks/status/1389174563297136652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Breakers couldn't buy a bucket to open the fourth - going almost three minutes before they finally moved on from their three quarter time score.

Meanwhile - Harvey and Simon continued to wreak havoc on either end of the court as the Hawks pushed their lead out to eight on the back of this sweet play.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ya love to see it <a href="https://twitter.com/YoungTRaaw?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@YoungTRaaw</a> + <a href="https://twitter.com/simon_Says_so?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@simon_Says_so</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IllawarraProud?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IllawarraProud</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FlyAsOne?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FlyAsOne</a> <a href="https://t.co/GihhZs3Plf">pic.twitter.com/GihhZs3Plf</a></p>— Illawarra Hawks Basketball (@illawarrahawks) <a href="https://twitter.com/illawarrahawks/status/1389176419477909506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Hawks revving up the defensive determination in the fourth quarter as the home side were kept to 10 final quarter points on the way to a hard-earned 75-67 win.

The Stats

The Hawks walk away with another win but it wasn't because they shot the ball well at all. The Breakers went at 42% from the field compared to the visitors 41%, while NZ landed 32% of their three balls while Illawarra could only manage to connect on 20% of their deep shots.

The Hawks did manage to get to the free throw line a monstrous 28 times though, converting 22 of those. While the Breakers shot 8/13 from the stripe.

The defensive end was where the game was won and lost in this one, the Hawks wracking up an impressive 10 steals to two, while they also had three swats to a pair from NZ.

The Hawks made the most of their takeaways, dropping in 16 points while the Breakers must be rueing losing the turnover count 15-8 and second chance point total 16-2.

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The Fallout

"I just think the team has tremendous character and it works hard and there's no quit in them. And I thought coming into tonight, I know everybody has, but we made some moves this season to bring some young guys up and play around certain guys and those guys aren't playing right now. And those young guys, there's a lot of pressure on them in order for us to win, you know Grida tonight, Froling tonight, Emmett Naar. that group of young guys, their role is so important right now with the guys that we have out," coach Brian Goorjian said.

"We started a little slow, they got their feet set and hit some threes and then the trapping got more aggressive and the rotations got more aggressive and from the first quarter and a half on, I thought our defence got better and better as the game went on. And we weren't brilliant offensively by any stretch of the imagination but that group played great defence...the energy on that end, the desperation, the fight in em was something I'm really proud of," Goorjian said.

"I just thought it had come to an end. He (Deng Adel) was broken, he wasn't gonna get healthy again, there was a lot of pressure on him, it was just going in a bad direction both ways and I've got the guy sitting next to me, I got Justinian, we got some young guys that we want to play down this back stretch, so you know, just best for both parties, I think he appreciated how it was handled, he felt the same way that we did, that this had come to an end, it wasn't going to get better, and the pressure was mounting and he needed to go in another direction and rejig it," Goorjian said.

"We've been on the road so much so to get some home ones at the end, they always told us we were going to get a stretch of home games at the end there so we've really been looking forward to that so to get this one out here on the road now is super special to us and we had a lot of fun tonight so we're really excited for this home stretch ," Dan Grida said.

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