![A fit again Illawarra Hawks guard Justin Robinson is looking to cap his own Cinderella story by guiding the Hawks to a fairy tale NBL title victory. Picture by Adam McLean A fit again Illawarra Hawks guard Justin Robinson is looking to cap his own Cinderella story by guiding the Hawks to a fairy tale NBL title victory. Picture by Adam McLean](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/kZL4qV6yTxfrWZJxKQxjSN/3d078e39-43f5-4b22-9cdd-38334bce3601.jpg/r0_85_1600_985_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Like the Illawarra Hawks team he plays for, Justin Robinson is looking to cap his own Cinderella story with a fairy tale ending.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
To do that Robinson wants to help the resurgent Hawks win the NBL championship, a little over 12 months after his own debut campaign with the foundation club ended in heartbreak after just one game because of injury.
The marquee import point guard suffered a meniscus tear in his right knee in the Hawks opening-night loss to the Kings and was ruled out of the remainder of his side's campaign.
History showed Illawarra won only three of 28 games last season.
Robinson returned to the squad this season but the Hawks' troubles on-court continued early on with a 2-7 win/loss start to the season.
It was then that the recently appointed Hawks head coach Justin Tatum took over from Jacob Jackomas and guided Illawarra all the way to a play-off clash against the Tasmania JackJumpers this Wednesday.
Robinson has been just as integral in the Hawks fairy tale run but told the Mercury the job was 'far from done' for a Illawarra side looking to cap their Cinderella run with an NBL title.
"My goal when I came here was to help the team win, so I signed back," he said.
"It was kind of a big goal of mine to turn things around from what happened last season and I couldn't play.
"It feels rewarding but obviously we're not done yet. We're excited to be here but we got a lot more work to do."
That work starts on Wednesday night when the Hawks travel to Tasmania to take on the JackJumpers.
The winner of this game progresses to a three-game semi-final series against the Perth Wildcats, with the loser having to win a sudden death play-in against the winner of the Sydney Kings v New Zealand Breakers play-in qualifier, to keep their season alive.
This is not lost on Robinson, who is ecstatic to be now playing an important role for title-chasing Hawks.
"I knew coming off the injury it was going to be a little bump in my road. I took a whole year off so I knew it would take some time to get back to my best," he said.
"So I took a little growing pains for a little bit, but this is testament to who I was, I grew as a person on and off the court through the growing pains.
"I'm excited for that and I'm excited that I was able to help us make a push to get into the playoffs."
Robinson has lost his starting spot and has been coming off the bench of late but both his coach Tatum and captain Sam Froling have praised the "unselfish" guard for putting away his ego and always doing what's best for the team.
For his part, Robinson is just trying to be the best professional he can be.
"I came here to win, so I'll do whatever it takes to make it happen," Robinson said.
"It was a gutsy move for them to pull me off the bench and I'm excited that they took that chance because it's worked.
"Credit to them and credit to them for putting me in that position and letting things flow that way and it was a credit to my team-mates for having my back through everything that has happened throughout the year."
Robinson and his team were now solely focused on following the game-plan devised by Tatum and his coaching staff to help them beat the "well-oiled" Tasmania.
"They're well coached. They have great players. Everyone knows how hard it is to win in Tassie. Everyone knows how hard it is to beat Tassie in general," he said.
"We just got to be ourselves. We got to cut down on the self inflicted wounds that we give sometimes, we got to value every possession and be ourselves.
"We just have to do what's been working for us and just continue to go with that route."