Tatum: Hawks risk 'wasting' season

Justin Tatum is starting to question if his Illawarra Hawks are serious about an NBL championship tilt, after two straight home losses.

The Hawks scored 100-plus points for a ninth straight game on Friday night, but it wasn’t enough to avoid consecutive defeats, with the bottom placed Cairns Taipans coming to the WIN Entertainment Centre and causing the upset of NBL25.

Coming off the New Year's Eve loss also at home to the South East Melbourne Phoenix where the Hawks had a string of turnovers that cost them the win by being outscored 12-4 in the final four minutes, Tatum was expecting a stern response.

Even though his Hawks were up 11 at half-time, they gave up 40 points in the third quarter and then once again blew a winning position when leading by four with 20 seconds to go, giving up the last seven points.

That left Tatum fuming after the game.

"You've got to question your guys if we are going to waste our season and not being able to finish it like we've been starting it," Tatum said.

"We've got to question the guys with what their motives are and if they are still in it to finish off strong, or if we're just going through the motions."

Tatum wasn’t interested in finding any positives after the game either, even if the Hawks did get 51 points off the bench including 15 from Darius Days, 15 from Lachlan Olbrich and 13 from Hyunjung Lee.

Illawarra also had 58 points in the paint as they were aggressive attacking the basket, but to lose a second game this week meant it counted for little to Tatum.

"At the end of the day it don't mean nothing if you can't win games, so 51 to their 21 on the bench points, 58 to 40 points in the paint but you lose by three," he said.

"You allow a team to score over 100 points again in our house, so it don't matter how many points our bench scores or how many points we score in the paint, if we don't finish games it doesn’t mean anything."

The Hawks remain at home for a third straight game on Tuesday night, against the defending champion Tasmania JackJumpers.

The JackJumpers are currently on an eight-game winning streak, before playing at home to the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Sunday and Tatum knows his team needs a better effort if they expect to win.

"We just have to find a way to win, we can't lose more games. The champions are the champions and we've got them next," Tatum said.

"Last time we met we threw that right out the window and we're going to get pretty much a different team to that on Tuesday. We have to be up for the challenge.

"If we keep being the same team that's going to allow teams to score over 100 points and give up wins towards the end, then it's not good for our fans to come support that group.

"They want to support the team that's hard working, dives on the floor and is finishing games, and supporting each other and finding ways to win. We owe our fans that so hopefully that team shows up Tuesday."