Kings win in the 'Gong to stay alive

The NBL looks destined to get the finish to this season it deserves with the Sydney Kings keeping their finals hopes alive with a 79-73 road win over the Illawarra Hawks on Thursday night.

The Hawks had already guaranteed their place in the finals that begins next Thursday night, but they could have secured third position with a win at WIN Entertainment Centre against their NSW rivals.

However, Illawarra came into the game minus leading scorer Tyler Harvey which threw a spanner into the works. Nonetheless, those who were out there put the Hawks in a winning position leading by five early in the fourth quarter.

Sydney just had to win to keep its season alive, though, and the Kings managed to go on a 12-0 run from that point including three balls from Xavier Cooks and Jarell Martin to turn the five-point deficit into a seven-point lead.

Late threes again from Cooks and Shaun Bruce closed the deal for the Kings who now ensured their remains three teams in the race for that last finals spot with Melbourne, Perth and Illawarra having locked in a playoff berth already.

The win improves the Kings to 18-17 on the season with a game to go against the also in contention Brisbane Bullets in Brisbane. The Bullets are 17-17 while South East Melbourne Phoenix still sit fourth at 18-16.

The Kings needed to find something down the stretch to stay alive in the top four hunt and Jarell Martin was a significant influence on the result with 23 points and 10 rebounds.

Xavier Cooks was huge too with 19 points, 10 rebounds and three assists including hitting 3/4 from three-point range including the dagger right in front of Brian Goorjian. He roared in approval but quickly apologised to the Hawks and national coach.

Jordan Hunter also had 15 points and seven rebounds for Illawarra, and Casper Ware 10 points and eight assists.

Kings coach Adam Forde found his group that was getting the job done in the fourth quarter and backed them in all the way to keep their season alive.

"I didn’t rotate in that last quarter and was sticking with the momentum of the guys who were out there," Forde said.

"Because there was a lot of stops and starts, and a few timeouts it didn’t look like fatigue was an issue so I didn’t think there was a reason to break that momentum. They hung tough and we got the win that we needed."

The Hawks decided to rest Tyler Harvey for the game ahead of the finals while Justin Simon and Tyler Harvey only played the 12 minutes to freshen up as well.

Illawarra still put themselves in a position to win with Isaac White finishing with 12 points and five rebounds, Sam Froling 12 points, seven boards and four blocked shots, Emmett Naar 12 points and six assists, Justinian Jessup 10 points, and Tim Coenraad nine points on three made triples.

While never willing to accept a loss, without Harvey, Illawarra coach Brian Goorjian was relatively content with what they got out of the game heading into the finals.

"That was just what we wanted out of the game honestly. We did our job against Perth and tonight it was our fourth game in eight days, and there were danger signs of injury for a guy like Harvey carrying a Bryce Cotton load," Goorjian said.

"The fact that the games have come so rapidly and to get through tonight and get Justin some rest, get Ogilvy some rest and take Harvey off the floor, and still be competitive and get some more energy out of that young group, we got everything that we wanted out of the game except for obviously it would have been great to win. 

"But we were prepared for what took place and are relieved that we are where we are physically and we've got this period of time now to get ready for this first playoff game. We ticked a lot of boxes other than the fact of losing to our arch-rival."

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 21

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 73 (White 12, Froling 12, Naar 12)

SYDNEY KINGS 79 (Martin 23, Cooks 19, Hunter 15) 

BOX SCORE