The Wollongong Hawks have put a premium on ball security for tonight's semi-final showdown with Townsville at The Swamp.
Last Friday's 19-point rout of the Crocodiles provided Wollongong with a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series and the pressure is all on the home side to force a deciding third game.
"The pressure is definitely on them now. If we win one more game we go to the grand final, whereas they have to win just to keep the series alive," Hawks forward Glen Saville said moments after touching down in Crocs country last night.
Full coverage of the Wollongong Hawks "We're pretty red-hot at the moment so I guess the onus is on them to match how aggressive we were in game one.
"The challenge for us is to win away from home in front of a vocal crowd, because they'll get some great support up here.
"The last time we played here wasn't so great."
While the Hawks have won four of five meetings with the Crocs in 2009-10, their previous trip to The Swamp ended in a disappointing 73-59 loss.
Wollongong turned over possession a whopping 28 times on that January evening.
Turnovers (20) also had the potential to ruin the Hawks' chances in game one, but excellent shooting and even better defence masked the high error rate.
Coach Gordie McLeod said his side would have to treat every possession like gold tonight.
"Hopefully we're better prepared mentally for that situation than we were last time we came here, because you know they're going to come out and throw everything at us and the challenge for us is to be ready for that," McLeod said.
"One of the things about playing on the road is valuing the basketball and cutting down on your unforced errors, but last time we were up here they came out and got very aggressive and very disruptive, and we tried to challenge that too much off the dribble and not enough off the pass.
"Rebounding is important on the road and it's important to shoot well, and if we do those things and value the ball, we'll be in this contest up to our ears."
McLeod said the Hawks were not thinking about a possible grand final berth.
"That carrot's been dangling there since game one at the start of the year, so that's nothing new to us," he said.
"It's not the end result, it's the process we have to go through to get the end result, and that where our focus has to be."
The Crocs are almost certain to get physical and test the Hawks' toughness.
Saville said his team was ready, willing and able to meet the challenge.
"We shared the ball well and played good team basketball in the first game. The confidence is there and we just have to stay aggressive."
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