The crucial victory that has Hawks confident of quick finals turnaround

Justin Tatum's squad missed the jump in Wednesday's seeding qualifier in Tasmania, leaving it needing to beat New Zealand in Wollongong on Monday to advance to the semi-finals.

Even if they can, league leaders Melbourne United wait on the other side right as people begin to question whether the Illawarra fairy tale is running out of steam.

While the performance in the island state was not pleasing to the eye, both teams returned remarkably similar stat sheets come the final buzzer.

It left Tatum asserting the challenge of rebooting in time for Monday's home showdown with the Breakers will be a mental more than technical one.

Fortunately for the Hawks faithful, their side has form in that area, as skipper Tyler Harvey spoke to in the aftermath to Wednesday's defeat.

"It's all part of our journey and our story," Harvey said.

"This whole year has been a season of up and downs for us, and one thing about this team is we always respond when we're hit with a little bit of adversity.

"That's just one chapter that closed today and we're going to go ahead and start another one on Monday.

"The good thing about this whole thing is we did give ourselves a chance to get another opportunity in front of our fans.

"Obviously I wish we'd come back with win, but that's the not the situation that we're in. The beauty of it is we get to play in front of our fans now, we know they're going to come out and rock that WEC."

It's no secret what part of the journey the Hawks will draw confidence from as they look to stay alive, with an 18-point win over Perth on the road in round 17 the axis on which the entire campaign swung.

It halted a run of three straight losses that seemingly amounted to the end of the honeymoon period under the then interim coach.

General manager Mat Campbell revealed prior to the trip to Tasmania that the turnaround win in Perth was the final box ticked in securing Tatum's future.

"I think the real turning factor was when they went through adversity," Campbell said.

"We thought it was a honeymoon period, we saw the response the players had to Justin's takeover, but after losing three games in a row the chips were down.

"The response the coaching team showed, and the response the players showed on the floor to beat Perth in Perth that very next game, really cemented the fact this playing group really want to play for this coach."

For Tatum, that victory solidified his belief that, far from merely restoring pride to franchise coming out of its nadir, this Hawks team could make a title run.

"It kind of flipped for me when won in Perth when we bounced back from that three-game losing streak," Tatum said.

"Our back was against the wall. In the back of my mind I was thinking 'man, we might be done because this is one of the toughest places to play that I haven't been to yet'.

"We came out firing on all cylinders and I just saw the growth from where this team had come from and, when our backs are against the wall, what we can actually be.

"When we won that game my whole thinking changed to 'forget just making it to the playoffs, we can win this whole thing'."

That belief explains why Tatum cut such an openly frustrated figure in the wake of the loss to the JackJumpers.

Playoffs are a different beast, but bouncing back in quicktime will not be a first for Tatum's Hawks.

"I'm sure we'll have a tough film session coming up on Friday, but we've got to get over it pretty quick," Harvey said.

"As bad as we played, there was moments of the game we were down seven. It felt like we were down 20, but we were right there.

"This is one we'll sweep under the rug a little bit, take what we need to from it. They just had a couple of runs that cracked us late, but we're not far off when we play our brand of basketball."