The Wollongong Hawks are shooting for a 4-0 sweep of their regular season series with the Townsville Crocodiles tonight at The Swamp.
Fourth-placed Wollongong (13-10) clinched the series with Wednesday night's 93-86 home win over the third-placed Crocs (12-9) and the teams will swap places on the ladder if the Hawks win tonight.
Up by 20 toward the end of the third quarter on Wednesday, Wollongong didn't finish the game as well as they planned, coughing up possession three times and hitting just 5/15 shots in the final quarter.
Full coverage of the Wollongong Hawks Victory was never in doubt, but the Crocs believe they have found a chink in the Hawks' armour.
After falling behind by 17 at half-time, Townsville switched to a full-court defensive press and harassed their opponents into nine turnovers in the second half.
Crocs centre Russell Hinder believes his side's committed fourth-quarter effort was a positive sign.
"Without a doubt," Hinder said.
"If the Hawks had stomped us by 30 or something and had their way in second half as they did in the first half, they're coming up and feeling very merry about themselves, but now perhaps there's something in their mind that if the Crocs that played the second half show up all game, it's going to be a hell of a night."
The Hawks were superb for three quarters in Wednesday night's win, fluidly executing their offence and keeping the Crocs under constant pressure at the defensive end.
But they will need to string together four good quarters if they want to beat the Crocs in enemy territory for the second time this season and move a step closer to clinching a spot in the semi-finals.
"We did a good job of disrupting them in the first and second quarters and they turned it around on us in the second half, so we'll have to look at that and address it," Wollongong coach Gordie McLeod said.
"The thing about Townsville is that they're a group that keeps coming at you. We got a little sloppy with the ball and allowed their press to disrupt us too much. They put us out of our rhythm and we allowed them to make a run at us.
"They got up the floor and got into us and got it out of the point guard's hands, so we have to be better organised with that and what we want to flow into. We have to be a lot more solid with the basketball because we made some very sloppy turnovers which could've been costly."
The Hawks don't play again until their February 4 road meeting with the New Zealand Breakers, while the Crocs will play their third game in four days tomorrow night against the Taipans in Cairns.
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