Goorjian's call to arms for Illawarra Hawks faithful

Slowly, as the master mentor has steered his team through an eventful NBL season, the Wollongong community has thrown its support behind the Hawks.

The momentum only grew when the Illawarra returned to the club's name.

Read more: Rebuilt Illawarra Hawks have earned NBL playoffs shot: AJ Ogilvy

Now, with the Hawks back in the NBL playoffs, Goorjian said the region should celebrate the achievement.

"The goal, and it was more important than winning, the first thing was getting that name back," Goorjian said. "This group earned that by how we played and now the second thing is getting the community behind the team.

"How do you do that? Our role as a team is how we play, how we perform. I said this is going to be the hottest ticket in town, we're going to get the community behind this team and we're going to bring basketball back to Wollongong.

"It started about three or four weeks ago, when we started playing games that are important and it's starting to build. I walk down the street, I get a high-five, a 'congratulations coach', that wasn't there when we first came here. There's an energy about it and this is a special place. It starts with this team and this is just the beginning."

The Hawks will wrap up the regular season against the Kings at the WIN Entertainment Centre on Thursday night, Sydney needing a win to keep their slim post-season chances alive.

With Illawarra in the four, guard Daniel Grida said it's now time for the side to conquer their next challenge.

"Me and Emmett (Naar) have lived together these last three years and every time we always talk about how much fun it would be to play in the playoffs," Grida said. "We think it would be better to win one here than anywhere else because it is such a small place and the crowd gets around us so much.

"We're so excited, it's been a huge year for us, we've been everywhere. We really stuck together and it's all coming together at the right time."