Newly-crowned NBL MVP Jerome Randle labelled the Hawks a ‘dirty’ team during the week before captain Mitch Creek backed up the claims on the weekend. 

Creek also said the Sixers were a ‘far superior team’.

The bold statements didn’t go unnoticed by the Hawks.

“That fuelled our fire,” Norton said.

“We were hungry anyway but that kind of fuelled that fire.

“And we just have to play our basketball and not worry about any of that stuff.

“We have to control what we can control and we did that tonight.”

Norton had a season-high 17 points in the victory and played a crucial role guarding Randle alongside Kevin White and Rhys Martin.

Randle had 20 points, but shot 8/23 on the night and also had five turnovers.

The Hawks kept the star guard quiet down the stretch with some high quality lock-down defence to keep their NBL title hopes alive.

Norton felt the Hawks would need a similar defensive effort in game three on the Sixers home court on Thursday night.

“They can go on runs over there that seem to never end,” he said.

“As long as we lock down on defence and get back on [transition defence] and slow them up, we are going to have a good shot.”

Whoever claims game three will play the winner of the series between Perth Wildcats and Cairns Taipans.