Flopper? 'No, he's a warrior'

Josh King was willing to give the Wollongong locals the benefit of the doubt for thinking South East Melbourne Phoenix forward John Brown III was a 'flopper', labelling his star import a "warrior"

South East Melbourne dominated almost every statistical category except shooting percentage and, ultimately, the scoreboard. They grabbed a remarkable 27 offensive rebounds, with Brown III responsible for 10 of them. He was immense all night, and King could only hope his star was OK after taking a knock to the ribs midway through the fourth quarter.

Hawks fans booed him heavily for the remainder of the game.

"He's (Brown III) a warrior and I hope he's OK after taking a shot to the ribs, but he's a huge part of what we do and he's a high level player, and what he does is play with such a crazy tenacity," King said.

"It raises the level and he was a huge part of our spurt and he raised his level up another notch, and the guys followed and that's usually what teams do ... they follow their veterans and best players."

King praised the atmosphere at WIN Entertainment Centre, while defending Brown III’s reputation.

"It was a great crowd tonight and they were into it, and I could almost betcha this guy doesn't know how to flop if you watch him, he's not a flopper and I hope he is OK, that's all I'm going to say.

"That's sports and I get it, I'm pretty sure most people are good and there's a country song that says I believe most people are good and I'm sure they were just into the game, and trying to encourage their team to push them over the top rather than just maybe thinking he flopped.

"I'll go with that."

The Phoenix launched a staggering 58 three-point attempts across 40 minutes in the overtime defeat, an NBL record, despite opening the game just 5-of-25 from deep. They adjusted in the second half, hitting 11 of 33, with Nathan Sobey becoming the perfect example of why Josh King wants his team to keep backing themselves.

Sobey missed his first 11 shots before catching fire late. He knocked down back-to-back threes, converted a three-point play, and added two more baskets in the final three minutes of regulation. He even had a clean look at the game-winner, before Illawarra ultimately prevailed in overtime.

"He was struggling offensively tonight probably until that fourth quarter when we put him in with seven or eight minutes to go, and you gotta take open looks," King said.

"If you're 0/11, you gotta take the 12th one and that's basketball, and Sobes is a confidence player and I actually thought that shot at the end of regulation was in, it looked good.

"A matter of fact and I won't say the player's name for Illawarra, but he actually told me he thought it was going in too, but I'm not going to out him. But he told me he thought Sobes' shot was going in."

The Phoenix moved to 9-5 on the season in defeat, ahead of a massive Throwdown against Melbourne United on Sunday.