Hawks prepare for first-ever JackJumpers showdown

Sunday will mark a new chapter in the Illawarra Hawks' story, as they take on the Tasmania JackJumpers for the very first time.

The round 12 showdown, pitting the NBL's newest (77 days in the league) and oldest (closing in on 43 years) teams against one another, looms as a crucial one for both sides' finals chances. 

After this match, which has 1244 games of NBL experience difference between the teams, both Illawarra and Tasmania have played every other team at least once this campaign.

This is the 14th game for Tasmania (6-7 record) for this season, marking the halfway point of their debut campaign.

In comparison, the last three new franchises have been 7-7 at the same stage, including most recently South East Melbourne in 2020.

Hawks’ Brian Goorjian last coached against a Tasmanian team in the NBL back on September 27, 1996, when his Magic defeated the Devils in Hobart 101-79 in what turned out to be the Devils last ever game.

Since then, Goorjian has gone on to coach 533 games in the NBL before tackling another team from Tasmania.  

His Illawarra side will go into the match full of confidence at the WIN Entertainment Centre following back-to-back wins against the Taipans - including their biggest win of the season on Friday (25 points).

By only scoring 79 points, the Hawks the win was the third biggest in NBL history by a team scoring less than 80-points.  

In that match, Cairns only scored 54-points, which is the lowest score ever posted against the Hawks by any team in their 1257 NBL games - therefore technically counting as the Hawks' best ever defensive effort in their history. 

Contrastingly, the visitors on Sunday have won four of their past five games with a last-start defeat by Phoenix by 12 points.

In that game, they led 40-38 at half-time but shot poorly in the second half including 1/13 three-pointers.

As positive as Friday was for the Hawks, they only shot 1/3 from the free-throw line - their lowest mark in franchise history.

Goorjian’s troops may have more luck against the JackJumpers who send their opposition to the charity stripe a league-high 20.6 times a game thanks to an NBL high 19.5 fouls per game.  

Tasmania is also the lowest-scoring team in the NBL at 76.8 per game but also are the hardest to score against at 77.3 per game.  

Illawarra’s three recent wins over the Taipans were the only three times this season the Hawks had out-rebounded their opponents.  

With Will Magnay out of the visitors’ line-up, last week they went with development player Jock Perry at centre in his first career start. 

That will be a big job against Australian Boomer Duop Reath who led the Hawks in scoring with 16 points on Friday and is averaging 13.6 points and 6.7 rebounds in his debut NBL season. 

Antonius Cleveland and Josh Magette are playing their first game against each other this season but they were former teammates at the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA in April 2018. 

Friday night was the first time in 53 games since the start of last season that both Tyler Harvey (seven) and Justinian Jessup (eight) scored single figures in the same game for Illawarra.

Josh Adams is averaging 18.0 points over his last five games and Magette 15.4 but captain Clint Steindl is just eighth on the team at 3.4 per game.

Sharpshooter Steindl, who signed from Perth in the off-season, has scored four, zero, five, three and seven in his last five games and shot just 2/18 threes and just 1/1 free-throws.

He will have good memories of some strong recent performances at the WIN Entertainment Centre including 12 points in last year’s game two of semi-final win by Wildcats when they were facing elimination.

He has scored 13, 15 and 12 in his last three games at the WIN and made three triples each game.  

Tip-off of the round 12 showdown is at 5.30pm AEDT, with tickets available via Ticketmaster.