Hawks Win by Finding Defensive Bite

It was a much more locked in Illawarra Hawks defensively on Thursday night and the result was their first win of NBL23 beating the South East Melbourne Phoenix 85-72.

The Hawks opened their account with the 13-point win at WIN Entertainment Centre despite a breakout performance for the Phoenix from Junior Madut while they were still missing four critical pieces.

The Hawks were back home following last Saturday night's loss to the Sydney Kings where offensively things clicked reasonably well putting up 97 points, but giving up 106 was the concern.

Illawarra kept its offensive pace up from what they showed against the Kings despite the absence of import guard Justin Robinson while their defence is where the improvement came.

The Hawks held the Phoenix to their third lowest ever score on the back of shooting just 37 per cent from the floor and hitting 6/22 from downtown.

In contrast, it was an efficient Illawarra performance going at 51 per cent overall and hitting 10/22 from deep despite taking 16 fewer field goals.

Tyler Harvey delivered 22 points and five rebounds on 8/16 shooting with 3/5 from deep for the Hawks but what was impressive was their spread of contributors.

George King stepped up for 16 points while Sam Froling had 11 points and nine rebounds, Lachie Dent in his first career start seven points and five assists, Deng Deng five points and eight boards, and Alex Mudronja five points.

Deng Deng is looking to make the most of his increased role in Illawarra this season and scored his team's first five points of the game but the Phoenix soon opened up a handy early lead. 

Triples from Kyle Adnam and Junior Madut put the visitors up 12-7 but then Tyler Harvey got rolling with two three balls. The Hawks went into quarter-time up 22-19 on the back of hitting 4/6 as a team from deep including one from 298-game veteran Kevin White.

South East Melbourne opened the second period with the opening five points including a triple from injury replacement import Malcolm Bernard. Illawarra responded with a three ball from Tim Coenraad before they were able to gradually build on that lead heading into half-time.

On the back of shooting 50 per cent from the field and with eight players scoring, the Hawks led 42-35 at the break despite taking 10 fewer field goals than a South East Melbourne team shooting at 35 per cent.

The Hawks then opened up a double-figure lead in the early stages of the second half and they were a switched on outfit, highlighted by veteran guard White throwing a poor pass, but immediately making up for it by taking a charge on Alan Williams.

A three ball from George King and then a dunk in transition saw the Illawarra lead balloon to 15, and was out to 17 by three quarter-time topped off by a thunderous one-handed finish from Mangok Mathiang.

The game wasn’t quite done yet though. The Phoenix hit the opening seven points of the fourth term in a minute of play capped by a Bernard three-pointer before Jacob Jackomas called the timeout.

The Phoenix continued to charge led by Mitch Creek and Madut, but they couldn’t get closer than six and the Hawks did enough to steady to go on to win by 13.

Both teams back up to play again on Saturday with the Illawarra Hawks on the road to their old haunted mansion in Perth following the Phoenix hosting the Cairns Taipans.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 2

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 85 (Harvey 22, King 16, Froling 11)

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 72 (Madut 21, Williams 13, Creek 12) 

BOX SCORE