Tatum's powerful message to his Hawks

The Illawarra Hawks' championship defence has gotten off to a shaky start, dropping their opening two matches.

But coach Justin Tatum isn't concentrating on the big picture just yet, rather focusing on chalking up the team's first win together of the Hungry Jack's NBL26 campaign, when they play New Zealand at Spark Arena in tonight's historic Ignite Cup fixture.

"I told the guys, we can't win another championship unless we learn how to win a game together," Tatum said to the Illawarra Mercury.

"They're [New Zealand] gonna be extremely aggressive and trying to find a way too. They're 0-4, we're 0-2, so we just have to make sure that we outplay them, but we want to make sure we play the right type of basketball."

Echoing the third year coach's sentiments is guard Biwali Bayles, who labelled tonight's game as 'must-win' for the reigning champions.

"It's definitely a must-win. We dropped two games that we probably should have won or could have won, but the vibes are still high," Bayles said to the Illawarra Mercury.

The foundation club currently sits in ninth spot on the ladder, after dropping their opening two matches against Tasmania and Perth.

The only team the reigning champs currently sit higher than is the 0-4 Breakers, who head into this Round 4 fixture off the back of a 22-point loss to Sydney.

Tip-off tonight is at 5.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.

Read the full story here >> Tatum: Illawarra Hawks must learn to win together to save NBL title defence