Tatum gets response he wanted from Hawks

A week earlier and Justin Tatum wanted a response from the Illawarra Hawks, and he liked what he saw not just with the result that keeps them in top spot, but the way they went about it against Tasmania.

While the Hawks did arrive in Hobart still in top spot with two rounds of the season remaining, they had only gone 4-4 in their past eight matches and that included two defeats at the hands of the bottom placed Cairns Taipans.

That included a loss in Cairns last Thursday night where Tatum was frustrated by his team's performance, particularly the starting group, and they had a whole week before getting to play again.

Tatum wanted to see a response from the Hawks and he got it with the 102-78 victory with some big plus/minus numbers for the starters this time including Wani Swaka Lo Buluk being +22, Trey Kell III +20, Sam Froling +19 and Tyler Harvey +14.

With the bench led by Davo Hickey, Todd Blanchfield and Lachlan Olbrich continuing to thrive too, there was a lot for Tatum to like with 20 points off Tasmania's turnovers, 15 second chance points, 52 points in the paint, and keeping the JackJumpers to 78 points on 42 per cent shooting.

"I am pretty happy with it. Our effort level was high and through the roof, our attention to detail was great and our will to want to win showed for 40 minutes. I still have some things to complain about but our team really did get better this week," Tatum said.

"We know we didn’t give our best effort last week versus Cairns and we had a really good week of practice, and we changed some things up intense wise and the guys are motivated differently right now. They wanted to get back to play this game and they gave a great effort."

As Tatum said after last week's loss to Cairns, you will never know if having a week in between games after a disappointing loss like that is a good thing or not until you see how your team comes out the next game.

Firstly, Tatum was pleased with the work the Hawks put in at practice and then certainly with how they played against the JackJumpers.

The carrot he can dangle is that they will get rewarded if they stay in a top two position of having some time off during the Play-In Tournament and FIBA international window.

"It's always good to get back in the lab and work on your mistakes that you've done in the game previous, but it was really good for us just internally to really get our competitive nature back," Tatum said.

"We want to not just finish these three games with wins, and we definitely don't want them to be losses, but we really want to get better.

"We know that if we put ourselves in a good position we'll get some time off and we want to use these games to kind of keep us focused and locked in. This past week was good for us and hopefully we can carry this on for the next couple of games."

As a coach you are never satisfied, and given Tatum does get frustrated seeing his team miss one free-throw, the fact they went 18/29 as a team despite beating Tasmania.

That included Froling, Swaka Lo Buluk and Mason Peatling combining to go 2/8, but it's also a good position if that's your biggest concern.

"We definitely have to get better at taking advantage of the opportunities we create for ourselves for the free-throw line," Tatum said.

"Guys just have to mentally lock in better and push themselves, and do better because if we don't play defence or Tasmania make some shots, this could have been a different ball game with 11 missed free throws.

"The guys understand that and they're tough on themselves, and we just have to find ways to improve that the next couple of games."