'I appreciate winning more': Playoff run extra sweet for Tyler Harvey

After running second in MVP voting en route to NBL First Team honours in his first year in Wollongong, and another finals run a year later, Harvey's third campaign was famously dismal on the team front.

The 3-25 ledger was a historical low, but there were hopes it would be in the service of an improved campaign this season. At 2-7, it was simply more of the same and saw the sacking of coach Jacob Jackomas.

Harvey faced another rebuilding year, which is a hard thing to embrace when it's the final year of your contract. As its turns out, the 30-year-old may be in the midst of the most remarkable of all his seasons as a Hawk.

Having gone 12-6 under interim coach Justin Tatum, the Hawks locked in fourth spot with Thursday's win over Perth, earning them two bites at the playoff cherry with a game to spare.

Even for one of the most relentlessly positive characters you'll ever meet, it's not somewhere the club skipper banked on being.

"I reflect on my first two years here and that feeling of being in the playoffs, it's just different," Harvey said.

"The atmosphere is different, every single minute is important, every single possession is important, and you kind of crave that feeling. Last year, obviously, we didn't get that opportunity.

"I appreciate winning a lot more, just through the roller coasters we've gone through last year and just the beginning of this year. I really do appreciate it, I love going to war with these guys and it feels good to be back."

"It does feel good to solidify ourselves in that four, but we still have work to do. We can't be satisfied with just being in the playoffs, we have bigger goals.

"JT tells us every day, we've just got to stay locked in one game at a time."

It could feasibly present a mental challenge, with the Hawks having already wildly exceeded expectations from when Tatum took the reins.

While many would consider the season a runaway success as is, Harvey said the playing group will lose none of its edge on the other side of the FIBA break.

"I don't think it's a challenge at all," Harvey said.

"Everybody on our team knows what we're capable of doing. We're all locked in and we've been locked in from the jump.

"It's not always going to go our way. There's going to be times where teams go on runs, we go on runs, you might not win every game, but if we just stay true to what we've done to get ourselves to this point, I like our odds.

"We're just going to try to stay locked into that, block out the noise and let's just keep going."

A run to the pointy end would certainly be the most unlikely push in Harvey's now four-year stint with the foundation club.

The Brian Goorjian effect had Illawarra in playoff reckoning from the jump in the mastercoach's first season in Wollongong, while they were among the title favourites the following year.

This year is entirely different beast, and so is interim coach Tatum according to his on-court leader.

"From the first day that JT took over he was just honest with us, talked about our situation that we were in and he always had that belief in us," Harvey said.

"We felt that as players and that's all you can want from your head coach, to have belief in you guys as a player. That gives us the free-reign to make those decisions out there on the court.

"It's been a blast playing for him. For me, this is my fourth year here in the Gong, it's my last year on the contract, but to share it with JT these last however many games we had with him, it's been unbelievable.

"I go home just ready for the next day to go to work, and it's not even work, it's fun."