Goulding, Landale lead United back to winning circle

The start to either half left coach Dean Vickerman fuming with Melbourne United staring down a fifth straight NBL loss, but they put the clamps on the Illawarra Hawks and did enough offensively for the rebound 75-65 victory on Sunday.

The pressure was right on Melbourne to bounce back at John Cain Arena on Sunday. They are still seen as championship favourites, but had lost their last four matches including against the Hawks in the same building last week and then a Friday night hammering by 28 points from the Kings in Sydney.

A fifth straight defeat would have led to panic stations and the signs weren’t great early with the Hawks dominating all the effort areas to lead 14-4. But Melbourne steadied to go on their own 13-3 run and to end up leading by four at the half.

But once again the Hawks outworked United to open the second half leading to Vickerman burning an early timeout. From that point on, it was all Melbourne and they outscored Illawarra 36 points to 25 over the final 36 minutes of the game to win by 10 and snap the losing slide.

Scoring just 75 points meant Melbourne's offence wasn’t really clicking still and the 18 turnovers will be a concern for Vickerman as will be the 20 offensive boards they conceded, but it was a step in the right direction.

To hold Illawarra to shooting 27/85 from the field at 31 per cent and 5/20 from three at 20 per cent is a win for Melbourne. Tyler Harvey (4/17), Justinian Jessup (6/16), Deng Adel (2/7), AJ Ogilvy (2/7) and Deng Deng (1/9) all found the shooting going tough for the Hawks.

Jock Landale gave Melbourne a real lift in the second quarter and had a good game with 19 points and eight rebounds on an efficient 7/10 shooting.

Chris Goulding was coming off a two-point outing against Sydney and had just four points in the first half even if one of the baskets was a breakaway dunk. But he turned it on in the fourth quarter with 12 points to finish with 16 for the game along with five assists.

Mitch McCarron shot just 2/12 but had seven points, 11 rebounds and four assists with Sam McDaniel contributing seven points and nine boards, and Yudai Baba seven points and three rebounds.

United coach Dean Vickerman was proud of the way his group responded to the loss to Sydney on Friday.

"We obviously had our poorest performance of the season up in Sydney but we try to stay pretty level as a team win or lose and you always have some outlier games," Vickerman said.

"That one was really poor and we had a good honest meeting after the game and the next day about going against our identity which is to defend, play at a good pace and to shoot a certain number of threes. 

"We just didn’t play like us and there was some times that it got too hard and it hadn't happened all year until then. That was the biggest message about this game, it was about getting back to playing the right way and we did that with our defence. 

"To hold anyone in this league to 65 is a great effort. We still turned it over 18 times and didn’t shoot the basketball how we want to shoot it, but credit to the group for the way they bounced back."

You couldn’t question the endeavour of the Hawks but their shots just wouldn’t fall. Jessup still top-scored with 13 points to go with four steals and three rebounds while Harvey and Sam Froling had 11 points each. Froling had a double-double with the 11 rebounds too.

Hawks coach Brian Goorjian just felt his team is exhausted having continued to be asked to play on the road.

"How we play when we play well is difficult. Getting the ball side to side, cutting, moving, moving the ball and then finishing the clock strong with a good play is difficult," Goorjian said.

"I thought defensively we hung in there and did what we needed to do, but offensively we just looked fatigued. Then not having Cam here and getting Ogilvy and Froling with two fouls in the first quarter made me go pretty deep into the bench. 

"We're off to Perth on the next one and it's brutal. It's really going to test us and tonight we just couldn’t go where we need to go physically through the process to get the shots we needed to get against a team like this."

Melbourne didn’t get the response to a 28-point hammering and a four-game losing slide coach Dean Vickerman would have been after. They scored one point in the opening four minutes and gave up numerous offensive rebounds as the Hawks outhustled them.

Eventually development player Mason Peatling scored a tough basket down low but Illawarra responded and with an and-one finish from Isaac White and three-pointer from Deng Deng, they led 14-4 after six minutes.

Vickerman let his players know his true thoughts and to their credit, they responded to close the opening term on a 13-3 run to tie scores up after one.

Illawarra again started the second quarter well thanks to Justinian Jessup and Justin Simon, but Melbourne was warming to task and got three balls from Yudai Baba and Sam McDaniel.

Tyler Harvey kept Illawarra within touch with eight points to close the half but Jock Landale was starting to feel it and then even Chris Goulding threw down a one-handed slam for Melbourne to be up 39-35 at the break.

The Hawks started the second half well with a jumper from the foul line to AJ Ogilvy and a three ball to Harvey leaving Vickerman again seething and calling the early timeout.

It worked with Melbourne controlling the rest of the quarter including Landale coming back out to hit a triple and make an and-one play. Peatling also hit from deep and while it was a grind, United extended their edge to 55-48 by three quarter-time.

The Hawks remain on the road and take on Perth on Friday night at RAC Arena while United remain at home to take on the New Zealand Breakers on Thursday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 10

MELBOURNE UNITED 75 (Landale 19, Goulding 16)

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 65 (Jessup 13, Harvey 11, Froling 11) 

BOX SCORE