NBL Champion Full of Praise for Plucky Hawks Win

It’s taken almost 16 rounds of NBL basketball, but the Illawarra Hawks have finally won a game away from home in NBL23.

Last night’s victory over the New Zealand Breakers feels like it’s been a long time coming, and although it took some incredible heroics from Tyler Harvey to get Illawarra over the line it would be hard to argue the Hawks didn’t deserve the win.

While they’ve been playing for pride and pride alone for a considerable amount of time already this season the Hawks have found ways of pushing teams all the way for most of the second half of the campaign.

<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/5VrUa4vTkozBPNqELyOi6M?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="152" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Speaking on NBL Today, Adam Gibson has issued a warning to the Bullets, Wildcats, Breakers and JackJumpers.

“If I’m a contending team in the last three or four games I would not want to play them,” Gibson said of the resurgent Hawks. “They’ve had such a tough season but it doesn’t feel like they’re the last team that’s struggling to get wins.

“They should have had three more wins [this season]. Instead of being on three they should be on seven or eight and the moves them closer to the playoff positions.

“They’ve been close. They made a pact to not splinter as a group, they just hadn’t been able to close out a game.

“I’ve been on teams like that that just haven’t been able to get wins and have had really tough seasons. For them to be able to come out [like that], I couldn’t be happier for them.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">TYLER HARVEY TO WIN THE GAME. HE IS MAGIC ?<br><br>UNRIVALLED DRAMA<br><br>WHAT A GAME OF NBL BASKETBALL ? <a href="https://t.co/218UNw8XkS">pic.twitter.com/218UNw8XkS</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1615989417155637250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

For all the praise going the way of the Hawks after last night’s action, there’s plenty of tough questions being asked of the Adelaide 36ers.

After falling to the Brisbane Bullets in an overtime thriller their hopes of scraping into the finals has reduced from slim to just about nil.

They now sit two wins behind South East Melbourne in sixth, and have a worst points percentage than the three teams they’re jostling with position with – the JackJumpers, Phoenix and United.

Gibson believes the 36ers roster has some soul-searching to do in the remainder of what’s become a disappointing season.

“They just didn’t show a lot of heart. They didn’t show they really wanted it,” he said.

“A lot of the reasons why they’ve been winning games has been Antonius Cleveland. He was really quiet through the first half, he didn’t shoot the ball well but he ramped up his defensive energy and that almost got them back to getting a win.

“They can’t rely on him to do that to spark them and get some kind of energy going.

“There’s been a lot of disruption in their team figuring out who’s best to start and who’s best to play minutes. I think they’ve just got too many pieces and if they’re not willing to sacrifice and do the little things like Cleveland does, you’re not going to win games.

“They’re probably not going to make finals – they’re not playing well and they’ve got a tough run home.”