Hawks hold on to fourth spot despite going down to Melbourne United

It looked after the loss that the Hawks would slip to fifth spot on the ladder and be required to play a one-off knockout play-in against fierce rivals the Sydney Kings.

But fortunately in the final game of the regular season Adelaide 36ers did Illawarra a favour and beat the New Zealand Breakers 76-70

The Breakers could have usurped Illawarra in fourth spot had they managed to beat the 36ers by five or more points.

Instead they will now have to travel to Sydney to play an elimination final.

The loss at John Cain Arena saw the Hawks finish the regular season with a 14-14 win/loss record.

Illawarra will no travel to Tasmania to take on the third-placed JackJumpers, who finished the regular season with a 16-12 win/loss record.

The winner of this game then books a three-game showdown against the Perth Wildcats, with the loser to play the winner of the fifth v sixth play-in battle.

It seemed from the outset the Hawks were desperate to pick up a first win against United, starting strongly in the first quarter but a 13-0 run to United saw Melbourne lead 23-17 at quarter time.

Illawarra had their own 13-0 lead early in the second quarter on the back of Tyler Harvey (11 points), who made three of his five three-point attempts in the term.

Justin Robinson also added plenty off the bench, with eight points and three assists, as the Hawks outscored United 25-15 in the term to head to halftime 42-38 in front.

The Hawks had done a great defensive job on Chris Goulding in the first half but the Melbourne sharpshooter came to life in the second half, hitting crucial three-point bombs early in the third term and late in the fourth quarter to guide United to their 20^th win of the season.

Goulding led all scorers with 19 points, followed closely by team-mate Matthew Dellavedova, who finished with 17 points and five assists.

Ian Clark and Luke Travers contributed 13 points each for United.

Robinson was best for the Hawks, finishing with 14 points, five assists and two rebounds, with Harvey, who was hot in the first half, ending with 13 points, of five of 13 shots.

Sam Froling was the only other Hawk to hit double figures, contributing 12 points, nine rebounds and five assists before fouling out with just over two minutes left to play in the fourth and final quarter.

Gary Clark had a quiet night, with only eight points to go with his seven boards.

There was concern late in the game for Clark when he twisted an ankle.

Hawks interim coach Justin Tatum felt the incident which led to the Clark injury should have been called a foul.

Tatum hit out the officiating in his post-match comments:

"At the end of the day it was something that was obvious and it should have probably been called but that's how the ball goes and that's how some of these officials are," Tatum said of the Clark incident.

"They call what they want to call, they see what they want to see but we just have to play through it."

Tatum also felt his captain Sam Froling was hard done by to foul out.

"It was tough to have Sam in and out rather than his normal substitution pattern,

"There were plenty of big bodies down there seemingly fouling but they hit Sam with them mostly, unfortunately.

"I wish we had the off-court relationships that some of those guys on their team have with the officials.

"But at the end of the day it is what it is, they're very competitive, they're tough, they are at the top of the league for a reason. We had to see how we fare out against them today ......I'm glad we got tested today."

Tatum confident Hawks will make some noise in the playoffs:

It was the Hawks third loss in as many outings to United but Tatum felt his team had shown more than enough in recent weeks and against Melbourne to show they could beat any team in the league on their day.

"That was the first time we've seen [Melbourne] in months and I think that was our best competitive effort.

"We led for the majority of the game. We led in assists and offensive rebounds. There was a lot of categories that we had a lot of positives in, so we just build on that.

"If we have an opportunity to see them again hopefully things will be different.

"We take confidence. In any game we win or lose, we are in the building now.

"Our confidence is there and we have done enough to get in the building and we will be playing next week.

"Now we got to make more noise when the playoffs start."