Strange foul count a baffler for coaches

In a remarkable stat, the Hawks were not called for a single foul in the first half but they came in a flood in the third quarter, with the Hawks pulled up 10 times and the final count ending at 16 apiece.

It played at least some role in a 59-30 second half in the Bullets favour, seeing them notch the biggest winning margin in any game in which the scores were tied at halftime in league history.

The level-up was frustrating for Hawks skipper Todd Blanchfield, with the television coverage capturing a heated exchange with referee Toni Caldwell over the swing.

Flinn had a wry response when asked about it the count in the post-match presser.

"It was just a great defensive effort right, very, very disciplined?" he joked.

"Look, we knew it's just human instinct that that's going to get evened up. We were generating some good points out of our defence and we weren't able to do that in the second half.

"We did speak about it at halftime but it's not what happens to you, it's how you deal with it and don't think we dealt with it very well at all.

"You want to be aggressive when you're playing defence and I didn't think our mindset was any different from the first to the second half.

"Maybe it was some technical things, I don't know, but I'm not going to sit here and blame referees when you get pumped by 30."

Lemanis also had a dry response when he was asked whether he's ever coached a team that did not receive a foul for an entire half.

"They didn't have a single foul in the first half which was unusual," Lemanis said.

"I can't remember being involved in a game like that but I haven't been involved in many games."

Sarcasm aside, Lemanis praised his side's adjustments in the second half to ultimately win in a canter.

"Obviously some of that [count] was due to they were playing and I thought we did a nice job attacking the rim in the second half and putting some pressure on their defence," Lemanis said.

"Illawarra's a good team, they've got a lot of young kids who play hard and they get after you. It felt like we were a little off pace in the first half, we had nine turnovers at halftime and that stopped us from getting momentum.

"In the first half we didn't clean up the boards as much we've come to expect over the last month but we got some defensive rebounds that let us run out and then we got aggressive and started to get to the rim."

The frustration of the hosts was evident in the third, with Lamar Patterson tee'd up after voicing his displeasure at an offensive foul. It sparked the MVP candidate, who dropped 10 of an unanswered 16 points that turned the game his side's way.

"At that point of the game we weren't playing the way we should've been so I just decided to be more aggressive and force the refs to start calling stuff," Patterson said.