Lowery challenges key Hawks

After starting his tenure at a downtrodden Illawarra Hawks with seven wins in his first nine games, Justin Tatum is staring down the barrel of a challenge he hasn’t faced yet in his short time as coach.

Illawarra managed to haul itself into the NBL’s top six for the first time in almost two seasons as recently as two rounds ago, however three straight losses to fellow Play-In chasers Brisbane, Cairns and Adelaide has seen the Hawks dip back into eighth position.

The season is far from unsalvageable for the Hawks. After all, they – along with New Zealand – have played the fewest number of games in the competition.

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Hawks legend and NBL analyst Damon Lowery has thrown the gauntlet down to Tatum for the remainder of the season.

“They’ve crashed back down to earth, the Hawks have had their wings clipped with three straight losses,” Lowery said on NBL Now.

“Justin Tatum – here’s your test. You thought the test was taking over those zombies earlier on and transforming them into a nice playing group? Here’s three L’s in a row, now you’ve got to find out what this team is really about.”

Hawks guard Justin Robinson had a weekend to forget in Round 16. He scored just two points on a combined 13 shot attempts across Illawarra’s pair of defeats over the weekend.

Robinson has endured a number of high-profile poor shooting performances, not least his three points against Adelaide in Round 3 when he hit just one of 15 shot attempts on the night.

Lowery says Robinson needs to find a way to play himself back into form, and has also challenged one of the competition’s top local centers – Sam Froling – to contribute even more to the side.

“Justin Robinson is one of the biggest slumps of all time. To quote my old mate Adam Caporn, ‘he couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a frozen chicken’,” Lowery continued.

“That is some serious brick shooting, poor old Justin Robinson can’t turn a trick right now but he’s going to have to dig deep and find something because that team still needs him.

“I’m throwing down another challenge to Sam Froling, be better man, you’re already good but don’t be satisfied with good – this team needs you to be great. 15 (points) and eight (rebounds), that is not enough. We need some 25s and 15s out of Sam Froling moving forward.

“The Hawks have some issues right now.”

Illawarra travels to Perth to play the Wildcats on Thursday night before they return home to play the Breakers on Sunday.