Sixers climb off bottom, hand Hawks third straight loss

The rejuvenation of the Adelaide 36ers under Scott Ninnis has continued with consecutive road wins getting them off the bottom of the NBL ladder with the 96-89 victory against the Illawarra Hawks.

Coming into the round and the 36ers had improved since the coaching move of Ninnis replacing CJ Bruton, but they had yet to win on the road.

They changed that on Wednesday beating the South East Melbourne Phoenix by 25 points in Melbourne ahead of heading to the WIN Entertainment Centre to play the Hawks on Saturday.

The Sixers shot out of the blocks quickly scoring the first nine points with Isaac Humphries (18 points, 10 rebounds) leading the charge as he continued his career-best form in the league's Pride Round.

Adelaide led 15-6 early and while it was a tight contest most of the rest of the way, the 36ers did hold a slender advantage for a lot of the evening and got the job done.

The dying minutes weren’t without some drama either and when Adelaide was leading by six, Hyunjung Lee was denied a layup that was deemed to be blocked clean by Kyrin Galloway.

Lee still had his career-best night in the NBL with 24 points on 5-of-8 three-point shooting, but when that goaltend was missed, Adelaide closed things out at the foul line through Trey Kell (26 points, 10-of-14 free-throws) and DJ Vasiljevic (14 points, 5-of-5).

The Sixers improve to 9-14 and condemn the Phoenix to bottom spot as they keep their faint hopes alive of reaching the top six with five games remaining.

Kyrin Galloway stepped up again in the absence of Jacob Wiley with 13 points and six rebounds with Nick Marshall adding 12 points, and Alex Starling eight points and five boards.

"It's really exciting," Ninnis said.

"We've been so poor on the road this year so to come around with two wins this week especially against a team that's been playing so well over the last couple of months on their home court, it's outstanding and I could not be proud about these guys."

It's three straight losses for Illawarra who slip to a 9-12 record to be back to eighth position.

Tyler Harvey had 20 points for the Hawks but his back court partner Justin Robinson had another horror night with zero points while missing all six field goal attempts.

Gary Clark's sore knee saw him play only 18 minutes for two points as well after 36 points in Thursday's loss to Cairns. Sam Froling did have 14 points and 11 rebounds through.

"It felt like there was a lid on the basket for us but I think we passed up great shots and the shots they were taking were good," coach Justin Tatum said.

"That's how it rolls sometimes and we just have to find a way to play more unselfish basketball to give ourselves a better opportunity to make baskets."

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 16

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 89 (Lee 24, Harvey 20, Froling 14)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 96 (Kell III 26, Humphries 18, Vasiljevic 14)

BOX SCORE