Hawks go down to Bullets on the road to drop out of NBL top four

Less than 48 hours after sneaking home in a double-overtime epic against Tasmania, the Hawks looked to run out of steam late, posting just 11 points through the first six minutes of the fourth term.

It was the Bullets biggest score of the season, and the highest score the Hawks have conceded under Justin Tatum.

Nathan Sobey did the damage for the Bullets, dropping 16 of his 25 points in the opening term, with Hawks skipper Tyler Harvey's 29 at 6-11 from three in response not enough to get the Hawks home.

In the absence of key men Josh Bannon and Casey Prather, Sobey was one of five Bullets in double figures, with Tyrell Harrison contributing 18 points and seven rebounds. Chris Smith (19) and former Hawks Mitch Norton (18) and Isaac White (12) also came up big for the undermanned hosts.

Sam Froling (15 points and seven rebounds), and Justin Robinson (15 points and three assists) were Harvey's most significant support act, with Gary Clark continuing his run of double-doubles with 13 points eight rebounds and three assists.

Tatum said his side paid for sluggish start that saw Sobey go off early, with the Hawks never leading by more than two for the duration of the contest.

"I was more disappointed in my team allowing 30 points in the first quarter and allowing Brisbane to get that groove going," Tatum said.

"Once you get a professional team going like that, it's tough to stop. We allowed them to shoot 46 free throws and stopped our momentum, our flow because we're a transition type team.

"They played well, they're at home, they had a good crowd behind them and it's just unfortunate we couldn't pull it off. [It was] mainly communication and not paying attention to the scout with us.

"We were supposed to go over on screens on certain guys, we went under and got caught a couple of times. We were undisciplined fouling about four or five times behind the three-point line and allowed them to get rhythm.

"It was multiple things with our guys which, at the end the day, we'll clean it on up once we get back next week, learn from our mistakes and build off of them."

With the Hawks coming off a 50-minute grind against the JackJumpers, Tatum went deep into his second unit, with 11 players taking the floor inside the opening 14 minutes.

With Robinson picking up his third foul in the second term, and Froling notching his early in the third, Tatum sat all of his starters down for the bulk of the third quarter.

The interesting line-up stayed in touch for most of the term before the visitors went 10-4 into the final break for a double-digit league. All told, five members of the second unit played 10-plus minutes, Hyunjung Lee (22.60) logging the most as the bench contributed 31 points and 11 boards.

Tatum said it's something he'll continue to lean over the remaining nine games of the season.

"That's the strength of our group, our depth," Tatum said.

"I felt that those guys could get us a lead or keep that score at a respectable pace to where we can get these [starting] guys in for the fourth because I knew I was really going to ask a lot of them in the fourth.

"Early on, I had these guys go about four -minute stints. I didn't want them to go over about five-to-six where I normally keep their starting minutes at because we wanted to make sure in that fourth quarter they were as fresh as possible.

"I do trust those [bench] guys enough to keep the lead where it was at or gain the momentum. I told everybody after the Tassie game to be ready to play short minutes and that everybody's going to be used.

"I was a man of my word, I stuck with it, those guys were ready, but we dug ourselves too deep a hole and allowed a good team to get into a groove."

Splitting a tough road double keeps Illawarra in the playoff picture heading into a home double on Thursday-Saturday against Cairns and Adelaide, with the home stretch shaping as a snakes and ladders game across the league.

"We know every game we have is a dogfight from now on," Tatum said.

"Before we took the road [last week], 2-0 was our goal. 1-0 we'll live with, but we're not dealing with 0-2 because we're a better team than that. We enjoyed the four-game winning streak that we had and we're not going to put our heads down at all.

"We're going to walk out here with our heads up, but we're disappointed we let one get away. At the end of the day, we've got another double-header next week,

"We can go from 10th to third if we have a two-game winning streak, so right now we just want to make sure we win every game possible. We probably have the most double-road games in the rest of the season... it's very important that we get these games, especially at home."