HOOPLA: New imports showing true Hawks colours

The kicker proclaimed "Mitch Creek's spectacular dunk over Matthew Dellavedova sparked an all-in scuffle as tensions boiled over in an epic Throwdown."

It came complete with a link to the dunk itself and the melee that followed. Creek's dunk and a replay of it accounted for around six seconds of the 57-second clip.

The other 50 seconds provided all angles of the melee from which five players and a coach were cited and issued with fines, with Mason Peatling suspended for a game.

Same deal with the scuffle we saw at the end of the Hawks-Kings game earlier the same day - from which four players copped fines.

For the record, your columnist loved it. Every bit of it. If Hoopla had its way only Peatling would've attracted any post-game scrutiny.

However, as far as the NBL goes, there's a fair degree of hypocrisy in so heavily promoting behaviour that, judging by the fines and suspension, it presumably deems unacceptable.

It continued over the weekend with Vic Law's headbutt on Deng Deng that was also shared via NBL social media channels.

Weighing up his $1000 fine without missing a game against the other sanctions we've seen is a baffling topic for another column.

Creek's dunk was spectacular and the league had every reason to beat the drum on it, but why include the other 45 seconds of behaviour supposedly bad enough to warrant sanctions?

The obvious answer is that it's bloody great stuff. State of Origin each year is accompanied by promos of all-in brawls from previous years and we lap it all up.

However, a broadcaster promoting a product it has purchased (for big bucks) is one thing, it's another thing entirely for a league to be heavily promoting incidents it's also charged with policing.

Mainstream media is taking a growing interest in the league but the NBL still overwhelmingly needs to drive cut-through via its own media channels.

Given that fact, one might be inclined to give the league a pass on this occasion, but it's a fine line. If both incidents are shamelessly used to promote the rematches, we can consider it crossed.

ILLAWARRA imports Antonius Cleveland and Xavier Rathan-Mayes have wasted no time endearing themselves to the Hawks faithful, giving some young fans a moment to remember in the aftermath to their sides's thrilling double-overtime win over New Zealand on Friday.

Cleveland spoke a lot about the fact he hadn't played in front of a home crowd for more than 18 months due to COVID in the US and his first two NBL games coming on the road.

He clearly relished being the hype man as the game tightened down the stretch and posed for selfies with fans afterwards, while Rathan-Mayes gifted one young fan his shoes. Classy stuff.

While the likes of Cleveland and marquee signing Duop Reath have quite rightly grabbed most of the attention, expect Rathan-Mayes' signature to loom as more and more critical as the season goes on.

Having arrived late in the piece to a preseason that saw a number of games canned, the 27-year-old's slotted well into the tough role of floor general primarily with the second unit.

Tyler Harvey remains Tyler Harvey. The ball was never going to be anyone else's hands at the death on Friday, but coach Brian Goorjian said post-game that his franchise man only had the juice to get there because of Rathan-Mayes' presence.

"It's a big recruit, a really important piece if we're going to go anywhere," Goorjian said.

"Tyler had some zip at the end of the game and you could put the ball in his hands and decide the game because you got 23-24 good minutes out of Xavier.

"You take the ball out of Tyler's hand and it gave him the opportunity to play better on defence, he had more energy in the last five or six minutes of the game because he wasn't under that dog pressure full court like he was last year.

"You look at Mitch Norton and what he does for Bryce Cotton, it's a similar situation in what we're looking for from Xavier.

"He services guys and he's not totally familiar yet with all the players' strengths and weaknesses but he's got good feel.

"I think there's a lot of growth there, not only in him, but the rest of the team."

Of course the Bullets did a far better job applying that 'dog pressure' 48 hours later, keeping Harvey in single digits and just 1-9 from long-range. Justinian Jessup was equally cold, finishing with 11 points and going just 1-6 from deep.

The Hawks found themselves in plenty of similar dog fights last season but could rarely get the win in them without Harvey going for 30 or near it in regulation.

Goorjian has hinted at possibly tinkering with his rotations, but the fact the Hawks were still in with a chance at stealing the game with their two primary scorers having that rough a night points to the greater arsenal he has at his disposal in year two.

Likewise, if you told any coach in the league that they'd play three of their first five games on the road and only drop one, they'd take it in a heartbeat.

It says a lot about how competitive the league is this year that the longest winning streak to start the year by any team was just three games.

Making a looming month-long stretch of home games count, starting with Thursday's showdown with the Phoenix, will be critical.

"There's only four teams that are going to go [to the playoffs] in this," Goorjian said after his side's loss to Brisbane.

"This weekend, we had double-overtime, tied with two minutes to go. There's nothing between these teams.

"There's not a lot of games and not a lot of time, we're down to 28 games. Last season we had that hub in Melbourne and had an extra eight or nine games.

"In this thing, losses kill you. Following that home stand is obviously going to on the road so establishing ourselves at home is going to be huge.

"There's a lot of pressure for us to perform there, create and environment that teams don't want to come to, and get some wins under our belt there."

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