Hawks aim to bring Wildcats "down to earth"

While the Illawarra Hawks have looked like a team with renewed belief under Justin Tatum, the NBL’s bottom-placed side will face the biggest challenge of his short tenure this weekend.

The Hawks will play host to the most in-form team in the competition, when Perth comes to town to play on Friday night, and Tatum believes his side is capable of going on a similar run to the Wildcats.

Perth found itself as low as eighth in the standings earlier this season, but a six-game winning run that has included victories over Sydney and Melbourne has seen them rise to third in the standings.

“The Brisbane game would have helped our confidence a lot more, but we could see we can compete with any team when we play well,” Tatum said.

“Perth has got that same type of feeling, and we want to catch up with them.

“They’re playing really well, they’re winning six games straight, so we want to bring them down to earth.”

Whether Bryce Cotton fires or not will be crucial in deciding who emerges with a win on Friday, and the three-time league MVP is in the midst of one of the most incredible stretches of his decorated NBL career.

Cotton has averaged over 30 points per game and almost 50 per cent shooting across the Wildcats’ last four wins, and Tatum believes shutting down him and twin towers Keanu Pinder and Alexandre Sarr is key to the Hawks' chances.

“You just hope he (Cotton) misses a lot of shots. We’ve got different bodies we’re going to throw at him and it’s going to be a collective team effort, but Bryce is an MVP candidate and we want to make sure we throw his rhythm off as much as we can,” Tatum said.

“What we do is we make sure we play to their weakness and make sure they take a lot of perimeter shots rather that getting straight line drives or offensive rebounds on us,” he added on Pinder and Sarr.

“They have a ton of energy so we want to match their energy and make sure we deplete them, as they’re trying to get going.”

Next Star AJ Johnson stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Tatum’s appointment as interim head coach, given the elite level development experience he's built across his coaching career so far.

Johnson has been ranked 69^th in The Athletic’s most recent NBA Draft big board, but Tatum says there’s far more to come from the teenager.

“He’s going to get a lot of positive and negative attention here, and there are going to be people evaluating everything he does,” Tatum said.

“We’re here to be his (Johnson's) safe place and safe zone, and this is where he needs to get better and lock all that noise out. The better chance he has to do that and work on his game, then he’s going to be the player everybody expects him to be.

“Once we get him to understand how the game needs to slow down for him, so he can take advantage for his skillset, it’ll be great for us.

“We’d like him to be more vocal and putting us in certain sets, which he’s working on swiftly, and he’s working on making that outside shot but everything else he does – he’s a high energy guy who gets his rebounds and attacks the basket, and it helps us out a lot.

“We’re going to need him for a stretch of runs for when we start getting on that Perth streak and Melbourne streak winning games, he’s going to be a big asset.”

Illawarra’s clash with Perth will tip off on Friday at 7:30pm AEDT.