Phoenix soar to snap Hawks winning run

The emergence this NBL season of the South East Melbourne Phoenix has continued with a tremendous New Year's Eve showing on the road to knock off the league-leading Illawarra Hawks 110-105.

The Phoenix lost their first five games of the season but now are emerging as genuine threats on the back of a terrific all-round performance to win at the WIN Entertainment Centre.

South East Melbourne opened up a 12-point lead in the first half and then came up with some huge defensive plays for a late 9-2 run to set up the five-point win to see them hand the Hawks their only two losses in their past seven matches.

The Hawks were back home for just the second time since November 28 and in hot form with the five straight wins and averaging 109.9 points, but the Phoenix arrived on a mission.

South East Melbourne hadn’t played since beating Adelaide by 20 points on December 21 and put together just about the perfect first half.

Joe Wieskamp had a career-best 17 points already and the Phoenix were leading 60-49 with two minutes in the half to go. Suddenly the Hawks came to life to shake off shooting 28 per cent from the field in the opening period.

Illawarra scored the last 10 points of the first half to cut the South East Melbourne lead to 60-49 at the break.

The tensions rose in the third quarter too with Hawks coach Justin Tatum picking up a technical foul joining his counterpart Josh King who got one in the second quarter, and by the end of three the scores were locked at 84-84.

Just as the Hawks appeared to be grabbing the momentum, the Phoenix came up with three huge stops that led to five of nine points in a 9-2 run that secured the win to improve them to 10-9 on the season.

Nathan Sobey delivered 25 points with four rebounds and four assists while Wieskamp ended up with 22 points and six boards, Matt Hurt 17 points and five rebounds, and Derrick Walton Jr 17 points and 11 assists.

Phoenix coach King liked that his team won on the effort areas in the last two minutes.

"I think we won the game in that last two minutes and I felt like we were the tougher team in the last two minutes of the game," he said.

"I'm just really proud of the collective effort from my team."

Illawarra scored triple-figures again for the eighth straight game and they do remain on top at 13-6 despite the loss and even with 21 offensive rebounds for 22 second chance points.

Tyler Harvey ended up with 20 points and three assists, Sam Froling 18 points and 10 rebounds, Davo Hickey 18 points, six boards and four assists, and Trey Kell III 16 points and two assists.

"It came down to our attention to detail and little small things with some careless turnovers late," Hawks coach Tatum said.

"We only had three turnovers going into the half and four going into the fourth quarter, and ended up with eight so it's just our attention our detail.

"It was the same way we lost to them last time with crucial turnovers at crucial point of times."

Tyler Harvey and Nathan Sobey traded three-pointers to open the contest before the Hawks made the first break with an 8-0 run with the first five of those points from Sam Froling before a triple from Hyunjung Lee.

That saw the home team leading 15-9 but South East Melbourne responded immediately with threes to Joe Wieskamp and Angus Glover, and then scored nine consecutive points topped off by a triple to Angus Glover.

The Phoenix were still leading 30-25 by the end of one on the back of that and shooting 50 per cent from the floor opposed to just 28 from the league-leading Hawks.

Matt Hurt got going with seven straight points midway through the second term with the Phoenix's lead out to 12 on the back of that before Wieskamp closed out the best half of his NBL career.

He scored another 12 quick points and had 17 by the half with the Phoenix in control at 60-49, but the Hawks dug deep for a big final two minutes and going on a 10-0 scoring run to suddenly be only a point down by the break.

Illawarra had lifted their shooting percentage to 42 opposed to the 51 from the Phoenix with the two teams combining for 38 free-throw attempts across the opening half.

The Phoenix had managed to push out to a seven-point lead again during the third quarter with Glover knocking down a three ball, but the Hawks kept on coming and a second and-one in the matter of minutes to Davo Hickey had the home team back in front.

A Malique Lewis long ball just before three quarter-time had South East Melbourne back level with the Hawks.

The Hawks did threaten to pull away a couple of occasions with a three-point lead, but the Phoenix came up with three crucial defensive stops to go on a 9-2 run to go from three down to back up by four with a minute to play.

That was enough for South East Melbourne to take back control for good to make it back-to-back wins against the league-leading Hawks.

The Phoenix will remain in NSW to open 2025 by taking on the Sydney Kings on Thursday night while the Hawks play their first game of the new year at home to the Cairns Taipans on Friday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 105 (Harvey 20, Froling 18, Hickey 18)

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 110 (Sobey 25, Wieskamp 22, Walton Jr 17, Hurt 17)

BOX SCORE