Hawks shot down as Bullets earn a hard-fought win

The Result

Illawarra Hawks 91 - Brisbane Bullets 97

The Story

It was a night to celebrate for captain AJ Ogilvy who played his 150th game in Illawarra colours, but it was the Bullets who blasted their way to a much-needed victory 97-91 over the Hawks in Round 7 NBL Cup action.

It was the Justinian Jessup and Sam Froling show early on - the young pair combining for the Hawks first nine points of the contest.

Coach Brian Goorjian went to his bench a little earlier than normal and it paid dividends with Emmett Naar flipping in a Tyler Harvey-esque floater to open his account, before Justin Simon dropped three buckets in the space of two minutes to give the Hawks a handy early lead.

The Bullets finished the first term with a flurry though to take a 27-25 advantage into the first break.

Jessup picked up right where he left off in the second quarter - landing another three to make it 27/49 for the season from deep at an outrageous shooting percentage of 55%.

The Bullets began to get on top courtesy of some hard-earned offensive boards and a gameplan that denied key Hawk Tyler Harvey any opportunity, time or space. The Hawks star import - averaging a tick over 22 points per game this season - having to wait until the 17th minute of the contest for his first bucket of the game. 

Jessup couldn't be contained though - this sweet move and finish handing him his fourteenth first half point as he led all scorers at the main break with a perfect 5/5 from the field.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Spin cycle feat. JJ ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IllawarraProud?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IllawarraProud</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FlyAsOne?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FlyAsOne</a> <a href="https://t.co/gSFclq2EcO">pic.twitter.com/gSFclq2EcO</a></p>&mdash; Illawarra Hawks Basketball (@illawarrahawks) <a href="https://twitter.com/illawarrahawks/status/1365191036344037379?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Bullets started the second half with an offensive outburst - a 14-0 run (12 of which came from the hand of Vic Law) leaving the Hawks flat-footed in a sluggish start.

Harvey responded in fine style after a difficult first half - landing back-to-back threeballs followed by a trademark floater to cut the lead to six.

From there the Hawks defensive intensity ramped up - two turnovers and an offensive board leading to more buckets for Jessup as he continued to fire and connect from deep.

A strange passage towards the end of the third quarter saw offensive fouls called on four consecutive possessions, with Cam Bairstow baring the brunt of the referees whistle and heading to the bench with four fouls. The Bullets withstanding a Hawks fightback to take a six-point lead into the final break.

The Hawks kept the Bullets scoreless for the first two and half minutes of the final term - with Justin Simon and Tyler Harvey adding to their points tallys as the ding dong nature of the final term commenced.

The Bullets managed to push the lead out to six with just under three to play - before a pair of Hawks buckets dragged it back to two with two to play. A huge offensive rebound from Cam Bairstow levelled the scores before the star of the show Jessup put the Hawks ahead with a minute left.

American star Justin Simon will be rueing a costly last-minute attempt to give the Hawks the lead though - an errant layup with the shot clock turned off allowing Brisbane to pull down the rebound and clinch the win from the foul line despite the best efforts of the Hawks.

The Stats

Jessup was the standout tonight for the Hawks with the 'Next Star' scoring a career-high 26-points - landing four triples and going 10/15 from the field. It's also the first time the Golden State Warriors draftee has had back-to-back 20-point games in the NBL.

Fellow splash brother Harvey was well held by a dogged Brisbane defensive unit - but still managed 15-points with a couple of boards, dimes and steals.

Sam Froling had a big first half on his way to 13-points - while Justin Simon filled the stat sheet with 13pts/5reb/4ast/3stl - including some highlight reel plays in the first half.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hell of an opening quarter from <a href="https://twitter.com/simon_Says_so?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@simon_Says_so</a> as he and JJ show off that chemistry ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IllawarraProud?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IllawarraProud</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FlyAsOne?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FlyAsOne</a> <a href="https://t.co/JXXihSaZLC">pic.twitter.com/JXXihSaZLC</a></p>&mdash; Illawarra Hawks Basketball (@illawarrahawks) <a href="https://twitter.com/illawarrahawks/status/1365186182439575555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Bairstow nearly had another double double while Deng Adel had a handful of stats across the board in another promising outing.

Goorjian deciding to keep his rotation short tonight - with the likes of Naar, Isaac White and Deng Deng seeing less than 12 minutes between them.

The Bullets won the battle on the boards 43-37, had more assists 22-14 and blocked three shots to the Hawks 0.

The Fallout

"Number one was desperation and energy and purpose - a mindset. As you go through this thing, it's being on the road, the Covid, dealing with that, it just looks like over the last four or five days it's mounting. We're not playing with the energy, the passion, the communication that we had in those first four games," Goorjian said.

"[On the road] we won all that stuff - rebounds, loose balls, deflections. We were key there. Tonight it affected our decision-making. I thought we were horrendous tonight on decisions and the push of the ball. We didn't want to play them in the half court, we wanted to play them in the full court, get stops and run...and that didn't happen."

"Tonight him [Harvey] and Justinian, they're [Brisbane] pressuring them in the back court. Faceguarding them, not letting them have the ball. having other ball carriers carry it out. Then off the ball it's real, real physical. I'm learning being here that it's not what I'm used to. It's really hard to free those guys up off the ball. I thought tonight the physicality definitely wore on him [Harvey]."

"The game is gonna go with runs and that was a bad run [14-0 at the start of the third quarter] and I was at fault to a degree there. When we got leads early or came back then I thought in the up tempo play of the game, we took some really bad shots. We've been really good at pushing the ball and getting ball movement. Maybe that's a sign of fatigue, I mean we had the ball with 15 seconds to go in a tied game, that's kind of where we wanted to be after being in a kind of hole."

The Road Ahead

Round 7 NBL Cup – Sunday 28 February at 2pm v South East Melbourne Phoenix @ John Cain Arena, Melbourne

It'll be a game the Hawks no doubt put a circle around when the NBL Cup fixture was released not long after the Phoenix thoroughly and comprehensviely outplayed them in Melbourne just under a month ago.

It was the fifth game in a row on the road for the Hawks and they played without the typical bounce and enthusiasm we'd seen in the opening two weeks - going down to a hot-handed Phoenix side by 16-points.

Cam Gliddon was the difference maker - catching fire from deep (5/11 from theee) to help fire the Phoenix to a deserved victory. A win here for the Hawks would certainly give them some breathing space and start to create a nice buffer between them and the chasing pack as they try and ckeep pace with Melbourne United.