Hawks with stunning turnaround to thrash Kings

Just days after their worst performance of the season, the Illawarra Hawks delivered their most emphatic on Thursday at the NBL Cup to bounce back and beat the Sydney Kings 89-69.

Coming off a horror showing against the Perth Wildcats on Sunday where the final margin of 17 points didn’t come close to telling the story of how badly Brian Goorjian saw his team outplayed, the master coach got the Hawks to focus on what they did so well when starting the season 4-0.

And they got back to some of that exciting and smooth executing basketball on Thursday night at John Cain Arena to record their third win of the NBL Cup.

Not only that, but they dominated their NSW rivals in the second half holding the Kings to just 25 points to end up leading by as much as 25 and winning by 20.

Following that 4-0 start to the season, the Hawks had struggled culminating in Sunday's loss to Perth. But that could have been the line in the sand moment for this team to turn things arounds.

Based on what they delivered Thursday, it sure looked that way and while Justinian Jessup shot himself back into form early on his way to 13 first half points, it was Sam Froling who had the breakout night largely down low.

He made his first nine field goals and missed his last on his way to 20 points, six rebounds, two assists and two blocks while his shooters got back to some form too.

Tyler Harvey had 17 points, four rebounds and four assists, Jessup finished with 15 points and three assists, Deng Adel nine points, four boards and three assists, and Cam Bairstow eight points, six rebounds and three assists.

Justin Simon had a better showing too at both ends for nine points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals.

Hawks coach Brian Goorjian couldn’t have been more delighted with the response from the loss to Perth on Sunday.

"It was a real nice one tonight. There was a lot of pressure there and maybe the expectations from the start of the year was a little much and what you realise is that it's a young team and it's resilient and will keep fighting," Goorjian said. 

"The thing that I was pleased about tonight and was disappointed about in the Perth game is that we brought the wood and went to battle. 

"That was obviously there from the gate tonight and battling means defensively getting stops without fouling and offensively moving the ball like that, and cutting like that. It can be hard work but all the cornerstones were there tonight."

The performance broke the trend for the Kings of winning big and losing the close ones. This was their biggest loss of the season and a performance to forget.

There were strong signs early with Jarell Martin returning from a knee injury and he hit his team's first four points on his way to six points and four rebounds in the first half. But 12 minutes must have been his limit and he never hit the floor in the second half.

Only DJ Vasiljevic scored in double-figures with 12 points with Casper Ware having an especially tough night on 2/10 shooting with four assists and four turnovers. His six points came with consecutive three-point bombs late in the first quarter.

Kings coach Adam Forde saw some danger signs in the first half, tried to fix them up at half-time and ultimately was left feeling flat that things only got worse.

"Everything changed. That was just a real bad beat. Nothing was as crisp and our rotations weren’t great in the first half, and we addressed it and spoke about it but we just didn’t get any better," Forde said. 

"We were just flat footed, we looked fatigued and we just looked out of sorts and everybody was guilty of it. It was different occasions with different people but it's real simple there's only one keyway and one basket and I don't understand how we didn’t rotate around. 

"It wasn’t great and there was a little bit of it in the first half but then they just opened up the floodgates in that third quarter. We just got run over."

Jarell Martin gave Sydney that inside presence to start the game they hadn’t had in his absence, but the Hawks' shots started to fall and all of a sudden Sam Froling and Justinian Jessup scored eight points in a minute to put their side up 17-7.

A couple of threes firstly to DJ Vasiljevic and then Casper Ware saw scores all tied at 24-apiece though.

Jessup and Tyler Harvey hit triples to push the Hawks back out to a handy lead again midway through the second quarter but again the Kings were able to pull it back and were just a point down at the break despite Illawarra shooting it at 59 per cent.

It was tough to read which way the game would go at half-time. It didn’t take long for it to take shape with Sydney scoring two points in the opening five minutes of the second half.

In that time, the Hawks piled on 11 including threes from Harvey and Deng Adel. Then after Shaun Bruce hit a three for Sydney, Illawarra hit the game's next 12 points to suddenly lead by 19, and still 18 at three quarter-time.

Things blew out further to start the fourth with the Hawks piling on the first nine points with even Justin Simon connecting on a three ball. 

Both teams just played out time the rest of the way but Illawarra was having fun and Deng Deng gave Akoldah Gak his first NBL points setting him up for a showcase alley-oop slam to close proceedings.

The Kings finish their NBL Cup against the on-fire Brisbane Bullets on Saturday while the Hawks face Melbourne United later that night.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 9
NBL CUP WEEK 4

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 89 (Froling 20, Harvey 17, Jessup 15)

SYDNEY KINGS 69 (Vasiljevic 12, Moller 9, Vodanovich 8, Bruce 8) 

POINTS AWARDED – Illawarra Hawks 6.5, Sydney Kings 0.5

BOX SCORE