Hawks make statement to go clear on top

The Illawarra Hawks were a team on a mission and further consolidated top spot in the NBL with an emphatic 117-95 home victory with Melbourne United dropping from second in the process.

Whether it was to make up for last time Melbourne was at the WIN Entertainment Centre, to hit back from Monday's loss in Adelaide or wanting first place, the Hawks made quite the statement.

The 22-point win sees Illawarra remain in top spot at 16-8 ahead of Melbourne who slip to 15-10 and give up second place to the 15-9 Perth Wildcats.

Not only was it a battle over top spot, but tempers spilled over in their last meeting in Wollongong.

The Hawks weren’t happy with what they felt was continued flopping from Melbourne captain Chris Goulding. He was greeted by a contingent of fans on Saturday night determined to let him know about it.

The Hawks got things on their terms in the first quarter despite only leading by four at quarter-time.

Goulding was keeping Melbourne in touch with four three-pointers for 14 points in the first half, but he wouldn’t score again.

Illawarra outworked Melbourne for the 58-46 lead with not only shooting 57 per cent opposed to 41, but 15 second chance points to two.

There was no stopping the Hawks and they opened the second half with 13 of the first 18 points doing plenty right in the win with 25 second chance points from 19 offensive rebounds.

There were plenty of contributors too with Trey Kell III top-scoring with 23 points on 5/9 shooting from downtown.

Tyler Harvey also had 20 points and nine assists, Lachlan Olbrich 18 points with a couple of big dunks late, and Sam Froling 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Hawks coach Justin Tatum was just pleased with the complete effort at both ends.

"The four quarters that we played was unbelievable," he said.

"One of the boxes that we wanted to check off was to play four quarters, and we'd played so many games where we only played two or three quarters well.

"I felt today we really played four quarters and the effort of Swak (Wani Swaka Lo Buluk) on their best offensive guy (Goulding) was what I liked the most."

Melbourne have now lost six of the last nine and shot just 40 per cent, going 11/35 from long range while managing four second chance points only on 16 offensive boards.

Shea Ili had 20 points and four assists with Jack White adding 15 points and eight rebounds, and Rob Loe 10 points, nine boards and five assists.

Coach Dean Vickerman was quick to highlight the 25 second chance points and 24 fast break points United conceded.

The two areas that we needed to be really good at were defensive transition and offensive rebounds," he said.

"You combine those two things together and the pace they played at and the second shots they got are two big time effort areas. That just wasn’t good enough for us."

It was a tight contest through most of the first quarter but you did feel the pace was suiting the Hawks and in the end they went on a late 10-4 scoring run to head into quarter-time with the 29-25 lead on 59 per cent shooting to 45.

Melbourne stayed in touch early in the second frame with a couple of three-pointers to Chris Goulding and another to Tanner Krebs, but Illawarra were outworking them and took control the rest of the half.

The Hawks closed the half outscoring United 16 points to eight to extend a four-point lead into a 12-point advantage by half-time on the back of Tyler Harvey, Sam Froling and Trey Kell III combining for 33 points.

Goulding had 14 for Melbourne, but the Hawks were in control on the back of 15 second chance points to two on top of still shooting at 57 per cent opposed to 41.

In less than four minutes United coach Dean Vickerman had to use two timeouts to start the second half with the Hawks going on a 13-5 scoring run to see the lead out to 20 including Wani Swaka Lo Buluk and Kell knocking down three-pointers.

That lead became 24 when Kell landed another triple as did Hyunjung Lee with the Hawks still up 19 by three quarter-time, and going on to score the 22-point victory from there.

The Hawks remain at home to play host to the struggling and undermanned Brisbane Bullets on Monday night while United head to Perth where they look to continue a dominant record against the Wildcats.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 117 (Kell III 23, Harvey 20, Olbrich 18)

MELBOURNE UNITED 95 (Ili 20, White 15, Goulding 14)

BOX SCORE