Hawks' Big Three Soar Over United

Written for nbl.com.au by Chris Pike

If you are looking for a big three for NBL23, you might need to look no further than the Illawarra Hawks after Sam Froling, Justin Robinson and Tyler Harvey were instrumental in an 81-68 Sunday night NBL Blitz win over Melbourne United.

It might have been an off-season of change for the Hawks including Jacob Jackomas taking over as coach from Brian Goorjian, but two key players to remain were point guard Harvey and big man Froling.

Subsequently they were named co-captains while a big signing was import guard Robinson, and now after one game at the NBL Blitz in Darwin on Sunday night, the signs are that the trio could take the Hawks a long way this season.

Now that’s by no means saying it's a three man team either because they have plenty of help and there's still Georg King to come into the line-up from Sunday, but their transition offence in the first three quarters on Sunday night was especially exciting.

Robinson ended the night with 14 points, eight assists and five rebounds for the Hawks with his backcourt partner Harvey adding 13 points, four boards, two assists and two steals.

Froling delivered 14 points, eight rebounds and three blocks inside with Mangok Mathiang contributing eight points and eight boards, Tim Coenraad six points, and Alex Mudronja six points, six rebounds and three steals.

RELATED: NBL Blitz standings

Melbourne struggled to contain the Hawks with their transition defence but they will be a different outfit with Chris Goulding and Shea Ili in the backcourt, while Dean Vickerman will sort out some of their early chinks. 

Rayjon Tucker is looming as a leading candidate to top the scoring in NBL23 putting up 20 points to go with four rebounds and three assists on 8/15 shooting for United.

Ariel Hukporti looks ready to take a further leap in his second season as Next Star and had 13 points and eight rebounds with Jordan Caroline adding nine points and three boards, and David Okwera nine points and four rebounds.

Sam Froling is coming off the off-season of his life as a regular part of the Australian Boomers including winning gold at the FIBA Asia Cup, and he started strongly giving the Hawks an inside presence early.

He had six quick points as part of Illawarra opening up a 10-6 lead before Tim Coenraad marked his return with a couple of three balls. However, Melbourne responded with a triple from David Okwera and and-one from Brad Newley to level scores up at 20-20 after one.

Justin Robinson then lit it up to open the second quarter for the Hawks with a mix of taking it to the rack and hitting from the outside. He scored eight quick points and then later in the quarter he nailed another from long-range to stretch the lead to nine.

A Tyler Harvey three ball stretched it to 12 and only five late points for Melbourne from Rayjon Tucker limited Illawarra to the 47-38 half-time edge with Harvey and Robinson combining for 21 points and six assists.

The Hawks then opened up the second half with the opening six points to blow the lead out to 15 but then Melbourne made a run sparked by five quick points from Jordan Caroline.

Tucker, Ariel Hukporti and Makuach Maluach then combined for a 6-0 run, but the Hawks had all the answers and helped by some poor shot selection up the other end, they scored 13 of the last 15 points to close the third quarter.

Deng Deng hit a pair of three-pointers as part of that to lead 70-51 and the Hawks were never threatened throughout the fourth term even though Hukporti hit a triple for Melbourne and Tucker kept battling and adding to his numbers.

However, the Hawks got some nice contributions from late inclusions Davo Hickey and Kevin White to cruise to the 13-point win.

Day 4 at the NBL Blitz in Darwin on Monday will see the Adelaide 36ers play the Tasmania JackJumpers first up followed by the Perth Wildcats taking on the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

The Hawks are next in action up against the New Zealand Breakers in the early game on Tuesday evening while United will wait until the late game on Wednesday when they face the Perth Wildcats.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL BLITZ – DAY 3

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 81 (Robinson 14, Froling 14, Harvey 13)
MELBOURNE UNITED 68 (Tucker 20, Hukporti 13, Okwera 9, Caroline 9)

BOX SCORE