How Phoenix plan to win Game 3

The South East Melbourne Phoenix did a lot right to force the Illawarra Hawks to a Game 3, but coach Josh King admits there's still one key area his team desperately needs to improve. 

The Phoenix did a lot of positive things in Sunday's Game 2 Playoff win at John Cain Arena to force the series decider back in Wollongong on Wednesday night.

Firstly by holding the Hawks beneath 100 points and forcing them into 13 turnovers it turned around what has been their remarkable average all season long while they more than halved the output of star backcourt Tyler Harvey and Trey Kell III.

Matt Hurt fired for 30 points with Nathan Sobey adding 25, but King felt they dodged a bullet having sent the Hawks to the foul line 29 times and conceding 19 offensive rebounds.

"With someone like (Tyler) Harvey, he's going to take a lot of shots, but finding him in transition and keeping his open threes in transition to a minimum is what we're trying to do," King said.

"We have to do a better job on the offensive glass, because that's also where he gets a lot of his looks too on kick-outs.

"We gave up 19 of those today, so the negative is that if I was to see we gave up 19 offensive rebounds before the game, I don’t know if I thought we would have won the game.

"We found a way but that's one thing we do have to clean up."

Coming into the series and whether or not the Phoenix could hold the Hawks below their season scoring average of 101.4 points and above their 9.3 turnovers was going to be a critical factor.

That didn’t happen in Game 1 with Illawarra scoring 101 points with just six turnovers, but the Phoenix got it done on Sunday holding them to the 94 with 13 turnovers from which they scored 19 points off.

The best part of causing those turnovers was it was instrumental in South East Melbourne's 18 fast break points too.

"We wanted to pressure them more and that was part of the game plan going in. We didn’t do a good job at that the other night and we were able to get after them a little bit more," King said.

"If they're comfortable then they are the best team in the league so we don't want that and for them to get to their spots. We have to do the best we can to make them uncomfortable."

A lot of the focus following Game 1 was the fact that Hurt only had six shot attempts for the Phoenix in his 34:35 of court time for 10 points and six rebounds.

That's someone who had been averaging 20.4 points and 14.6 shot attempts to be named to the All-First Team. On Sunday there was a combination of his teammates getting him more involved and Hurt himself refusing to be held down.

He finished with a match-winning performance of 30 points and two blocks on 11/19 shooting from the field, 4/7 from three-point range and 4/6 at the foul line.

"Matt was tremendous and he's a guy that when he gets it going, he's one of the best players in the league for a reason," King said.

"I think right away he was determined and when he plays well we're tough to beat, but we also had several guys tonight that stepped up.

"And if we want to have a crack at them and to be a good chance to win the game on Wednesday night we'll need several guys stepping up."

The Phoenix head to WIN Entertainment Centre for Game 3 on Wednesday night, with live coverage from 7pm AEDT on ESPN.