How Hawks can be "unstoppable"

Justin Tatum has warned the Illawarra Hawks will be "unstoppable" in the NBL Championship Series if Melbourne United allow Trey Kell III to get off the leash.

The Hawks had the franchise's best ever regular season in NBL25 in Tatum's first full season as coach with a 20-9 record to claim top spot for the first time before then having to navigate a 21-day break before the Playoff Series with the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

The Hawks claimed Game 1 at home on Friday night but struggled in Melbourne on Sunday with the pressure back on them at home for the decider on Wednesday in front of 5203 locals desperate for a first Championship Series appearance since 2017.

What the Hawks delivered was the highest-scoring first half of NBL25 (70 points) along with recording their biggest ever finals victory (30, having led by 43) and producing their highest ever finals score (126).

"It came from a bad performance on Sunday. The guys really wanted to find a way to get it back and play well, and play together and play to win," Tatum said.

"Not to play to have good stats individually so that's what we talked about and at the end of the day they didn’t want to let themselves or our season or our crowd down.

"They told me that they have got me when I was looking stressed and the performance was all on them. They knew that it would be a slug fest and we came out punching."

Kell III wasn’t the only Hawks player disappointed in his Game 2 performance on Sunday, but was the one who came out to set the tone on Wednesday with 16 points in the first quarter and 26 for the half.

He ended up with 30 points and five assists after having just six points on 1/10 shooting in Game 2.

Tatum knew if Kell III was in that sort of mood, the Hawks weren't going to be losing.

"It ignites us seeing him (Kell) with that energy and getting the crowd going, and him finding his spots and getting shots going early does nothing but ignite us," Tatum said.

"It gets everybody else going because we know what he does is he draws a lot of attention and then sees the other guys open to get them good looks.

"We want to make sure that our starters set the tone and then our bench guys finish off whatever's left on the plate. When he gets going like that, man, we're unstoppable."

The Hawks changed up the starting line-up for Game 3 too with Todd Blanchfield in as the power forward for Mason Peatling.

It was Blanchfield's first start of the season but it was actually by mistake when Tatum ticked No. 21 instead of 22 without his glasses on pre-game.

He only lasted 40 seconds in that initial stint, but from there the 436-game veteran had a career-best shooting performance going 8/12 from long-range for 28 points.

"TB did a great job and he was a spark plug and unfortunately I did a mishap on the starting line-up," Tatum said.

"I put TB instead of Mason Peatling, I didn’t have my glasses on at that time, but he came in and got that one rebound which I guess ignited him for those eight threes. I guess that was a chess move from me unintentionally."

It's a promoter's dream for the Hawks to now be playing United in the Championship Series starting with Game 1 on Saturday night in Wollongong.

Tatum is looking forward to the match up.

"I feel confident especially after the display of my guys playing today and knowing we've got three more games to finish the job that we had in mind the whole season to win the whole game," Tatum said.

"Melbourne's a professional, really great time and they have the same ambitions we do to win the whole thing but they have to come here first. Hopefully we can build off this game and find a way to pull a win out on Saturday."

Game 1: Saturday 8 March
Illawarra v Melbourne, WIN Entertainment Centre, 8:00pm AEDT
ESPN 

Game 2: Wednesday 12 March
Melbourne v Illawarra, John Cain Arena, 7:30pm AEDT
ESPN 

Game 3: Sunday 16 March
Illawarra v Melbourne, WIN Entertainment Centre, 5:30pm AEDT
ESPN, 10 BOLD

Game 4 (if required): Wednesday 19 March
Melbourne v Illawarra, John Cain Arena, 7:30pm AEDT
ESPN, 10 BOLD

Game 5 (if required): Sunday 23 March
Illawarra v Melbourne, WIN Entertainment Centre, 2:30pm AEDT
ESPN, Channel 10