Hawks take full advantage of wounded Phoenix

The signs coming in pointed to an ugly night for South East Melbourne Phoenix and the Illawarra Hawks confirmed it as they continued their stunning NBL turnaround with the 116-78 home win.

The Phoenix came into Friday's match at WIN Entertainment Centre missing three of their most important players – gun centre Alan Williams, star point guard Gary Browne and new import Abdel Nader.

That trio took 44.7 points, 20.5 rebounds and 8.7 assists a game out with them with the Phoenix already without the injured Craig Moller and axed import guard Will Cummings who combined for 20.7 points, 8.5 boards and 3.2 assists.

Still the Hawks were in a hole themselves only seven games ago when sitting on a 2-7 record and had to take care of business. They did with the 38-point margin the biggest loss in South East Melbourne's short history.

The Hawks have now won six of eight games under Justin Tatum since replacing Jacob Jackomas as coach as they improve to 8-9 to be in a play-in position.

By the end of the first quarter, the Hawks already opened up a 24-15 lead with Justin Robinson (19 points) scoring on the buzzer. He then scored the first seven points of the second quarter to push the lead out to 16.

Illawarra was up 53-36 at the half even with Tyler Harvey (seven) taking just two shots and scoring three points.

Gary Clark (16 points, 13 rebounds, four assists) opened the second half with five quick points for the Hawks to ensure the home team remained on top.

The Phoenix simply didn’t have the talent to seriously threaten with the Hawks leading by as much as 41 before winning by 38 on 62 per cent field goal shooting with 12-of-21 from downtown.

Sam Froling dominated inside with 20 points despite just 2-of-7 free-throw shooting with Lachlan Olbrich in support with 11 points and six rebounds. Hyunjung Lee hit three triples for 15 points with Next Star AJ Johnson adding 11.

Tatum was pleased the Hawks kept their feet on the throat of the Phoenix.

"Our goal is to keep moving on up the ladder and keep finding ways to better ourselves as a group," he said.

"Those guys are starting to believe more every day and our confidence is just building through on the roof when we can translate what we're doing in practice in games."

The Phoenix missed their first 12 three-point attempts before development player Luke Rosendale knocked one down. Captain Mitch Creek delivered 24 points, seven rebounds and four assists with Kody Stattmann adding 11 points and Ben Ayre 10.

South East Melbourne coach Mike Kelly was realistic afterwards.

"They were good, we were bad and I think every time you step out there whether it's training or a game you have to find something you can get better at," he said.

"We will sweep it eventually, but we need to look at it first as painful as it will be to watch it again so we can try to take something out of it."

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 14

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 116 (Froling 20, Robinson 19, Clark 16)

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 78 (Creek 24, Stattmann 11, Ayre 10)

BOX SCORE