As his team stares down the barrel of a grand final series sweep against the Wildcats in Perth this Sunday, the Hawks sharpshooter has refused to lose faith in his team’s ability to pull off an NBL miracle.

Illawarra will need to win two games on the road in Perth and a potential game four in Wollongong next Friday night to achieve the unthinkable and claim a second NBL championship. It will be an enormous task under pressure, but Forman has seen first hand this season how his team can produce when they need it most.

"It's been an ongoing theme with this team, this year. When it is a must win situation we play desperate and play urgent and we come up with a better result than if we are complacent or have time to fix it later," Forman said.

"It is not like we have been complacent in the finals. We have played well in the first halves but then got run over in the second half and haven't played to our game plan.

"We got closer game two to game one, but now like against Adelaide there is no option. It is win or go home.

"When this group has been faced with that we have usually done pretty well.”

Illawarra have been in the game in both of the first two grand final series losses to Perth before fading in the third quarter to fall 89-77 in consecutive matches.

Forman is confident they can overturn the trend and prevent the Wildcats from securing their eighth NBL championship on their home floor in game three.

"The feeling in the group is positive,” he said.

“It is that we lost the games rather than we got beat. There are fixable areas and after watching film there was a lot of good stuff that we did.

"And there was a lot of times in game one when we watched film, it wasn't Hawks basketball the way we played.

"Game two, there was more of the style we played but we still didn't stick to it for the full 40 minutes."

The Hawks went more than a decade without a win in the West Australian capital before this season, but will gain confidence in the knowledge that they’ve beaten the Wildcats on their home floor in 2016-17.

They beat Perth 89-85 back in November. 

"It breaks the whole back of the mind thought that we can't win here. We can,” Forman said. “We have been putting in decent performances there and so when it gets late in the third quarter when they go for a run over there, we do have the belief that we can get the game.

"The early game suits us. The time difference should be fine so the preparation should be fine it is just going to come down to whoever wants it more."

Illawarra should also reap the benefits of a four-day break between games as centre AJ Ogilvy continues to return to full fitness from an ankle injury and import Marvelle Harris settles back into the country after travelling back to the US to be with his dying father.