Robinson preparing for battle of will

The two Playoff Series clashes so far between Melbourne and Illawarra have been high-powered, offensively charged, modern-day classics, and Hawk Justin Robinson is expecting the same from the do-or-die Game 3 on Wednesday night.

United and the Hawks have scored a combined 442 points across the two games, which have both needed an extra period to be decided.

The winner of Wednesday’s clash will progress to the Championship Series against either Perth or Tasmania, while the loser will have their season brought to a close, and Robinson says the quality of offensive talent on the floor in Wednesday’s game means it should be just as exciting as the rest of the series.

“We’re two talented teams and guarding one another is hard, because there are talented guys all over the court, and big-time players step up in big-time moments, and there are a lot of big-time players on the court,” Robinson told SEN.

“Both sides of the ball scores it as a good clip and makes tough shots. Obviously, we have to make an emphasis on defence, but it’s just like any other high-level sport – it’s hard to control the other team on defence, but it’s also good to go on offence and go at their game plan as well.

“I think it shows the talent on both sides and I feel like we’ll have a barn burner in Game 3.

“The mindset of who wants it more is how things are going right now. You know what other team’s going to run, you know what their players are capable of doing, but it’s about energy, effort and who’s going to want it at the end of the day.

“We’re taking high pride in that and we’re going to continue to want it more than them.”

Should the Hawks manage to defeat Melbourne and progress to the title decider, they’ll be looking to become just the second team in the history of the NBL to win a title the season after finishing bottom of the standings.

Robinson was sidelined with a knee injury for most of the NBL23 campaign in which his side slumped to a 3-25 record, in what was an injury-riddled and forgettable season for the foundation club.

He says this type of Finals campaign was a team goal of his when he signed back on for this season.

“It would be fantastic, obviously that was one of my goals when I signed back after the injury, to make a Playoff run,” he said.

“If we can make a championship run that would be even sweeter, so I think if we can pull this one out in Game 3, bringing it back to the ‘Gong for Game 2 of the Grand Finals would be huge for the community of Illawarra.

“They’ve supported us all year and we haven’t taken that for granted.

“We’re going to probably keep the same idea of what we want to do against Melbourne, obviously Game 1 didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but we felt we outplayed them for 34 minutes and they beat us in the last 11 including overtime.

“We just have to focus on being able to maintain a 40-minute game in a 40-minute stretch against a well-coached and talented team in Melbourne.”

Game 3 of the Playoff Series between Illawarra and Melbourne will tip off at 7:30pm AEDT on Wednesday night, live on ESPN via Kayo.