Hawks dominate late to hand United third straight loss

Illawarra Hawks have ended their NBL Cup on a high while consigning Melbourne United to a third consecutive loss as they dominated the fourth quarter on Saturday to win 77-69.

The Hawks were almost looking down and out six days ago with a horror show against the Perth Wildcats which gave them three losses in four games. 

They needed to show some heart to fight back and they did that on Thursday to beat the Sydney Kings but they were always going to need to go up another gear to knock off United on Saturday.

Melbourne threatened to pull away a few times during the first three quarters to lead by a point at quarter-time, five at half-time and then 10 four minutes into the third quarter.

From that moment, it was a complete domination from the Hawks. They finished the third quarter on a 7-3 run and then held United to just nine points in the fourth quarter while scoring 21 themselves including seven to Tyler Harvey on his way to 23 for the game to win by eight.

To dominate the last 16 minutes of the game by outscoring Melbourne 28 points to 12 is a performance to be commended by the Hawks to end their time at the NBL Cup on a high with the back-to-back wins.

Melbourne was undefeated heading into the NBL Cup but they leave with a 4-4 record on their home court and have now lost three games in-a-row to Brisbane, South East Melbourne and Illawarra to be 10-4 overall.

Along with Harvey's 23 points, six rebounds and four assists for Illawarra, Cam Bairstow delivered 15 points, Justinian Jessup 13 (six rebounds, 3/6 from three) and captain AJ Ogilvy eight.

It was a milestone night for legendary Hawks coach Brian Goorjian as he became the first man to reach 750 NBL games coached, and he was delighted to leave the NBL Cup on such an impressive win.

"Right now it feels like everything is brand new and that I'm experiencing everything for the first time so it's a strange feeling reaching 750 games. But the emotion I had for this game had nothing to do with that," Goorjian said. 

"It was more about thinking it was D-Day for our group just because of the challenge of what we've been through for the length of time and playing a team like Melbourne on their court after they've lost two, and were rested and ready. 

"I just really focused on before the game that they show the competitive spirit that was questioned in the Perth game. That goes for all of us and we're trying to build a new culture, and there has been a lot of questions since the start of the season so we wanted to weigh it up after 15 games. 

"I'm now walking out of here going back to the 'Gong and I feel like the team has backed up their promise to the community when Illawarra became the name."

Mitch McCarron didn’t give up the fight for Melbourne finishing with 16 points and four assists while Chris Goulding had 13 points but shot just 4/17 from the floor and 3/12 from downtown.

Jock Landale added 12 points, eight rebounds and three assists, and Sam McDaniel eight points in a significant role that saw him play over 24 minutes.

Melbourne coach Dean Vickerman couldn’t really fault his team's defence, but scoring 12 points in the last 16 minutes of a game isn't going to be a way to win too often.

"It was more than a bit of a struggle in the second half but I thought we had a better process in the first half about how we went about it," Vickerman said. 

"We really simplified our playbook and it got chopped to really small given our limited preparation. I thought we were on the same page most of the time and I thought in the third quarter we attacked, got our feet in the paint and then it started to be a period where we just missed shots. 

"You roll into the fourth quarter and we'll look back and say there was 10 really good three-point shots that we took in the second half and probably made none. But when that's happening you have to find other ways to tick the scoreboard over, and we couldn’t get to the foul line. 

"You ain't going to win games scoring nine points in the fourth quarter. We held them to 77 and they are a really good scoring team so we did our job defensively, but we just can't throw it in the ocean right now."

The Hawks were the first team to make a break as they led 10-5 early but Melbourne responded with a 10-2 run to take a lead which they still held narrowly 21-20 by quarter-time.

It was shot for shot to start the second quarter with Chris Goulding connecting from deep for United as did Tyler Harvey and Justinian Jessup for Illawarra, but a late triple from Mitch McCarron helped Melbourne to the 43-38 half-time edge.

Melbourne did start the second half strongly and back-to-back Jock Landale buckets saw them lead 57-47 four minutes into the third quarter.

The game then underwent quite the shift. Melbourne only scored a further three points in the last six minutes of the third term while the Hawks scored nine including a three to Jessup and dunk to Cam Bairstow to cut the margin to four by three quarter-time.

That trend continued in the fourth quarter with the Hawks coming out and hitting the opening eight points. Melbourne fluffed a golden chance too with Dillon Stith blowing a wide open dunk.

Eventually after four minutes of the quarter McCarron and Mason Peatling brought United back within a point before Jessup responded with a three ball. Sam McDaniel answered in kind from downtown for Melbourne but the Hawks would score the game's lost seven points to win by eight.

Melbourne heads to Sydney to play the Kings on Friday before returning home to host the Hawks again on Sunday. 

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 9
NBL CUP WEEK 4

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 77 (Harvey 23, Bairstow 15, Jessup 13)

MELBOURNE UNITED 69 (McCarron 16, Goulding 13, Landale 12) 

POINTS AWARDED – Illawarra Hawks 5, Melbourne United 2

BOX SCORE