AC Knows He Has to Bring It for Hawks to Thrive

Written for nbl.com.au by Chris Pike

Having previously pulled on a Melbourne United uniform, Antonius Cleveland had some NBL grounding before signing at the Illawarra Hawks as he now continues to bring the energy his team needs to succeed under a coach he quickly learned had legendary status.

Cleveland has settled nicely into this season with the Hawks too and as he freely admits, often how he goes, his team goes. When he's energetic and up and about, playing hounding and quick-handed defence, and throwing down dunks and being aggressive offensively, his team thrives.

Alternatively, if he's not quite doing what coach Brian Goorjian expects from him, his team might not quite reach their potential and he sure hears all about it from his six-time championship winning mentor.

Celebrating his 28th birthday for Wednesday's game, he is delivering 13.1 points and 5.9 rebounds a game with Illawarra, but he knows what he brings has to be more than just about the numbers.

"It's really important for me to bring that energy and I think it's equally important offensively and defensively. I still need to put more focus on the defensive end but my entire life I've always been a two-way guy," Cleveland said. 

"I've been proficient at the defensive end and a good player offensively, and it's hard for me to always lock in 100 per cent defensively because I want to make sure I have a good game on the other end too. 

"I'm still learning to really just lock in 100 per cent defensively the best I can and as I go, the team goes so I have to bring it. With me playing hard and being active off the ball it gets me going on the other end so I need to keep that in mind sometimes. 

"I feel like if I'm not producing on one end then I'm not helping, but really this team just needs me to be myself. That's pretty good on defence and wreaking havoc, and offensively on transition just get to the free-throw line and making plays."

Coming out of his standout college career with Southeast Missouri State in 2017, Cleveland was a call up to play for Melbourne in the NBLxNBA game with Oklahoma City Thunder before splitting the start to his professional career through the NBA and G-League.

However, Cleveland was after a fresh challenge following the 2021 season with Oklahoma City Blue and heading to Russia with the language and cultural barriers didn’t quite appeal to him.

That's when he harked back to that experience with United and he thought the NBL would be quite the nice fit. He didn’t know about Brian Goorjian's legacy at that time, but he has quickly learned, and he knew coming down under and playing in the league was something he wanted to do.

"I thought it was a five or six-month season, that's the kind of idea you get when you speak about the NBL. You think of it as a quick season from October to February, but of course with COVID some of that has changed," Cleveland said.

"But nevertheless, that was one of the reasons and when I signed the league wasn’t postponed the two times it ended up being. That played a big factor but also coming out of college, I played a game with Melbourne. 

"It was when Chris Goulding's appendix erupted and it was my senior year at college. They reached out to my agent and we played the Thunder so I met up with Melbourne in OKC and spent like three days with them. 

"I know that was just one team out of the NBL, but that when I got some familiarity with the league and seeing how they went about it. People laugh at me all the time when I say this and I'm not going to say I didn’t know they speak English in Australia, but I was just kind of reminded that they did when I got with the team."

What Cleveland did know to expect was the high standard of basketball in the NBL and it quickly became an easy decision for him when he factored in the way of life would likely be an easier adjustment than heading to Europe or Asia.

"It's just small things like that, I'm a big people person and I love to have conversations and talk to people so knowing I could go to the other side of the world and there would be no language barrier," he said. 

"Besides my accent, I can have a conversation with people as compared to going to play in Russia for my first time overseas and really having no idea what the person in McDonald's is even trying to say to me. It's just small things like that and also the NBL is a good league, man. 

"It is a strong league with good players so I felt like it was an easy decision for me to come play here. The weather is nice, everyone speaks English, it's a great league and I already knew some of the players so I was just eager and excited to take the step especially for my first time leaving the country. 

"Why not go to Australia, it was an easy transition because I'd heard so many nice things about the country as well."

While Cleveland admits to not knowing of Goorjian's legacy when first approached to join Illawarra, he quickly knew he wanted to play for him when they first talked during the Boomers run to Olympic bronze in Tokyo.

One thing Cleveland told Goorjian early on when they got together in the 'Gong was that he wanted to be coached and pushed hard, and that he could take it. That means it's not always easy, but Cleveland does always have the best intentions. 

"As far as my and Goorj's relationship, he kind of gets on me hard about my energy and defensively, and all the things that it takes to get better. When you get with some coaches, they don’t know how to approach a player because they're not familiar with them and they don't know how to coach or to attack them," Cleveland said. 

"But I told him that I can be coached and I can take constructive criticism, and you don’t have to worry about me going into his shell because I'm being coached. Ever since I had that conversation with Goorj early on he's been pretty hard on me, not too hard, but direct and telling me when I'm not playing defence or am hurting us here and there. 

"I think me personally like that and it helps me, and I try to listen to what he says, man. I try to lock in on it and meet him halfway because he's a great coach and knows what he's talking about. He is just trying with me individually to get me better and tells me what it's going to take for me, and for this team. 

"I just try to listen to him and through it all try to take heed to everything he says and actually go out and do it. Sometimes it seems as if I don’t do it, but I have good intentions when it comes to him as a coach and doing whatever's asked of me. Sometimes I go out and do it, sometimes I don’t, but my intentions is always to make it happen."

Looking back on getting to know Goorjian, it didn't take long upon travelling down under for Cleveland to realise just what a big deal his new coach was.

"I actually had no idea who Goorj was until I signed and my agent told me about him. When I was speaking to Goorj, he was in Tokyo at the Olympics so that's when I found out that he's coaching their national team so pretty much means he is a big deal," he said. 

"As I was travelling to Illawarra, people would ask in the airport what team I was playing for and when I told them, the first thing they always mentioned was Goorj and what a legend he was. 

"That happened everywhere I went so I pretty much kinda knew about his resume as I was coming into this thing and now you can pretty much see why. He has knowledge, he's respected and he's a great coach."

Speaking of Goorjian, clearly he had put the team on notice coming into Saturday's game in Cairns following a second loss to Perth two days earlier in the space of a week.

They responded with a 94-75 win with Cleveland delivering 15 points. He enjoyed his first trip to the Tropical Far North and how the team responded.

"I really liked Cairns, it's a pretty cool place and it was definitely good to go in there and get the win to get back on the winning side. We're just trying to put some games together now and get some kind of streak going, and trying to get better as a team," Cleveland said.

"I think we know what we did wrong in those losses that we had. We watched film and coach pretty much hits the nail on the head every time he speaks about the game. We just wanted to really capitalise on our mistakes from that last Perth game and try to get better against Cairns especially on the defensive end. 

"Some things that we didn’t do against Perth we wanted to do against Cairns by picking up the defensive intensity and stuff like that. 

"We took some steps forward with that and Perth might not be up as high as Cairns in the standings, but they are still a good team and we were just happy to take a step forward on the defensive end. There were some small positives that we tried to take away from the game and I think we did that."

Away from basketball, Cleveland has had fewer surprises than he expected living in Australia. He expected to be overcome by spiders and snakes by now, and to see all sorts of creatures everywhere he turned.

"I don’t want to jinx myself but from what I heard was a lot of crazy stories and I haven’t really seen anything crazy as far as spiders or snakes," Cleveland said.

"In my apartment since moving in I haven’t had any run ins with any little guests or creatures in my home so that's pretty much the thing that I've been enjoying the most," Cleveland said.

"I haven’t had any surprises so that's good. I knew life would be different as far as food and things like that compared to what I'm accustomed to, but for the most part there hasn’t been no surprises so far."

And while he's cautious of getting in the water if he hears of any dangers where he is, the beaches of Wollongong have received his big tick of approval.

"I actually do get in the water a lot and I'm not scared of it but when you go up to somewhere like Cairns and they tell you about the box jellyfish in the water you get a little worried when they say if you get stung it can kill you," he said. 

"So I avoid going in the water in places like that, but back in Wollongong I go to the beach a lot and get in the water no problems. I also spend time at the lighthouse and I've jumped in the water a few times with my teammates for night swims. I just want to kind of be in tune and have knowledge of where I am. 

"I haven’t heard anything about box jellyfish or blue ring octopus so mentally I'm fine with jumping in the water in Illawarra. It's just when we get to travelling and we go to Cairns and you hear about all these different things, I say you know what, I'll wait til I get back in Wollongong and there's no beach today or this week. I do stay away when I hear incredible stories for sure."

The Hawks are now back in action on Wednesday night against the New Zealand Breakers in Hobart. Cleveland knows they need to be switched on just as they were in Cairns to come away with the win.

"I think we just have to come out and know that they are dangerous. We've got to respect them the same way that we came out against Cairns. We knew that Cairns was pretty much a dangerous team with their home crowd so we wanted to come out and jump on them first," Cleveland said.

"This will be similar but at the same time, it's going to be a little weird with no fans and it's going to be all about how we approach the game as a team, along with New Zealand. They don’t have a home crowd or anything like so it's going to just be about our guys versus their guys. 

"We have to lock in, bring more energy than them and just stick to the scout. Goorj and our staff do a pretty good job with giving us the blueprint on how to win so we just have to follow what they say and play hard. Everything should take care of itself if we do that."