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The Illawarra Hawks have cemented their top-four position while confining the Sydney Kings to the cellar, posting a 102-83 win at the Sandpit.
The 19-point win is the seventh at home for the Hawks who appear to be setting themselves a good home record, defeating every team not called Perth they’ve played there this season.
“I’ve made the choice as a coach that I want to entertain the crowd by scoring a lot of points and playing tenacious basketball,” Hawks coach Rob Beveridge said.
After a shock win against Melbourne United on Wednesday night, the Kings came crashing back to earth as they struggled to keep up with the highest scoring team in the league.
“The one thing I love that they [Illawarra] do is scrap, every loose ball they are fighting for, they’re shooting elbows at us, grabbing our shirts… they’re fighters, man, I respect what they do, that’s the goal for us,” a positive Kings coach Joe Connelly said.
Once again it was Illawarra’s big three who led the way in scoring for the home side, Kevin Lisch top-scored with 23 points, including three from the perimeter.
Kirk Penney and AJ Ogilvy picked up 21 and 17 points respectively.
“It’s just so much fun to play with guys who are unselfish,” Lisch said.
The Hawks looked asleep early in the first quarter, as the Kings picked up from where they left off against Melbourne to rack up a quick 20 points inside five minutes.
Marcus Thornton looked good early on hitting two three-pointers, but he could only manage a further seven for the rest of the game.
The Hawks were woken from their slumber, finding themselves down by 11 points. They quickly made up for lost time to find themselves down by two at the first interval, with some good contributions from their bench.
The score was lighting up at a fast rate as both teams shot the ball at over 50 per cent in the first half, but the question on everyone’s minds was: could the Kings keep up the pace?
The answer was a resounding no as the Hawks locked down the Kings defensively in the second half, where the away side could only manage 33 points.
“We’re scoring the most points, we’re a high energy team and we’re actually becoming a very good defensive team,” Beveridge said.
To make matters worse for the Kings, hulking centre Julian Khazzouh could be missing a fair chunk of the season after going down in the second quarter, clutching his right knee.
The Hawks will now cross the ditch to take on the New Zealand Breakers who have found some form, while the Kings will host the Breakers next week in their new home at Sydney Olympic Park.
Illawarra are yet to take their scintillating home form on the road with them, winning just two fixtures away from Wollongong this season.
“That’s our challenge; for us to jump on the plane tomorrow morning to New Zealand, we know it going to be tough,” Beveridge said.
“We’ve got to absolutely give it our all… play that freestyle type of basketball, really be aggressive defensively. If we can do that then we can win some games on the road.”
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