VIDEO of their 89-77 loss to Adelaide made for uncomfortable viewing for the Hawks on Monday.
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A week after being blasted by coach Rob Beveridge for their commitment at the defensive end of the floor, the Hawks gave up 54 points in the first half and were out-rebounded 11-2 in the first quarter.
36rs big men Anthony Petrie and Daniel Johnson dominated inside with Petrie producing 11 points in the first term after the Hawks badly missed the jump.
Adelaide centre Daniel Johnson dominated the glass with 16 rebounds to go with his 15 points leaving Beveridge to again lament his side’s effort on the boards.
With a chance to climb back into the top four one the line, Beveridge would have expected a far better response to his spray following his side’s home loss to Perth, but it appeared his harsh words fell on deaf ears.
It was the continuation of what’s become a common theme for Illawarra who’ve been out-rebounded 125-82 and out-scored 41-21 in second chance points in three losses from their past four games.
Skipper Oscar Forman was at a loss to explain the poor start against Adelaide but said it certainly didn’t look pretty in a video session Beveridge promised would be “brutal” on Monday.
‘‘It didn’t feel that way out there but when we watched the tape we looked incredibly sluggish,” Forman said.
‘‘From the video, and I’ve had a lot of people say it to me, we just didn’t look good out there.
“It felt like we were working hard but it’s just one of those things where you watch video and everything becomes so clear.
‘We had a lot of defensive lapses, we strayed from our game plan and we didn’t have focus.
‘‘We let them control the tempo too much and we didn’t have a hold of the game.
‘‘If you get the hold of a game you control it most of the time with your defence.
‘‘It’s frustrating to realise such a missed opportunity in a game where we never really gave ourselves a chance to win because our intensity wasn’t there.”
While he couldn’t explain his side’s lack of hustle early in Saturday’s contest, Forman had no problem pin-pointing where the Hawks have fallen down in three losses from their last four starts.
"It’s rebounding,” he said.
‘‘We need to have a focus on defence and rebounding, defence and rebounding and the offence will flow because we’re a naturally offensive team. If we really lock down on defence the offense will just come.”
Forman welcomed a much-needed stretch of four home games starting with Wednesday’s clash with Sydney.
‘‘I think this stretch at home is going to be really important for us to re-focus and not have the lapses like we did [on Saturday],” he said.
‘‘Early wins are gold and we’ve let a couple of them slip.
‘‘We’re in that mid pack but we’re slowly fading toward the back of it so we need to make sure we’re moving up.