Harvey refuses to chase "selfish" scoring

Since he arrived in the NBL in 2020, Tyler Harvey scoring the ball has been a largely crucial component to Illawarra’s offence. In Monday’s win over New Zealand though, that wasn’t the case.

Harvey and star import forward Gary Clark combined for just 14 points in Illawarra’s three-point Play-In win, as Sam Froling and Justin Robinson led the side to a hard-fought victory to secure Playoff basketball returned to Illawarra.

Harvey himself scored seven points on 3-10 shooting against the Breakers, to tie his own personal mark for fewest points scored in a Hawks win this season.

The former MVP candidate says he’s happy to do whatever helps his team win, and that taking the shine away from Robinson and Froling on Monday would have been “selfish”.

“To me it’s all about winning. Some nights scoring might not be there for me personally, but it might be there for somebody else and I think that’s the beauty of this team,” Harvey said.

“Whoever has the hot hand that night, we’re going to keep going to it. J-Rob and Sam had incredible nights scoring and it would be selfish if I started to take forced shots because of the way the defence is playing me.

“At the end of the day you have to find the hot hand, and we found those hot hands on Monday. I don’t really worry about scoring, scoring comes to me naturally and I just want to impact the game to win.

“I think to fend off a good team like New Zealand was important for us as a team and we’re hoping to ride that wave into Melbourne.”

The Hawks failed to beat Melbourne in any of their three regular season meetings this season and haven’t won a game at John Cain Arena since a clash with United in the late stages of NBL22.

Their Round 20 clash saw the Hawks fall by just five points in what was the closest game of the regular season between the two sides.

Harvey says he’s looking forward to the tactical battle between Dean Vickerman and Justin Tatum.

“I think they’re an experienced team, they’ve been there before and they have a lot of experienced vets on their team, so we know going into it they’re going to be prepared just as much as we’re going to be prepared,” he said.

“It’s so different in the Playoffs, and it’s sort of like a chess match. Each coach is trying to find different tactics to, not rattle the other team but see what kind of adjustments they’re going to create.

“It’s a fun little puzzle we have to figure out throughout the game, and you have maybe a minute to figure it out, but that’s part of Playoff basketball, it’s a chess match.”

Illawarra’s Play-In clash with Melbourne will tip off at 7:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo and 10 Play on Thursday night.