Hawks brace for Melbourne United battle after emotional win over Breakers

Especially if the home team Melbourne are as successful as the New Zealand Breakers were in shutting down the offensive output of Hawks stars Gary Clark and Tyler Harvey.

The duo combined for only 14 points, making just six of 21 shots in Illawarra's 88-85 play-in win over the Breakers at WIN Entertainment Centre on Monday night.

It wasn't a shock to see the Breakers step up their defensive efforts on the pair, especially on Harvey who has burnt New Zealand numerous times, scoring more points against the Breakers than any other NBL rival.

Harvey has shown throughout his career that he can't be contained for long, as has Hawks MVP and All-NBL First Team member Clark.

But should United somehow find a way to slow them down, Robinson is ready to play hero for the Hawks once again.

On Monday night the man they call JRob had 10 straight points for the Hawks to close the third term, and back-to-back threes to square the ledger after the Breakers took the lead in the fourth.

He went 14-14 from the line, including a cool six of six inside the final 29 seconds to first re-take the lead, and then hold it to the final buzzer..

All up, Robinson finished with 26 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals in what was his best, and certainly most timely performance of the season.

"I just love those moments," Robinson said.

"I think I've been that way my whole life. Early in my professional career, I want to take that moment and embrace it."

Hawks coach Justin Tatum praised his star guard and backed him to deliver the goods against United at John Cain Arena.

Tatum also had every confidence Harvey and Clark would bounce back to their best on Thursday night.

"Tyler and GC have shown time and again what they can do, I have no concerns with them. We just have to be better as a team," he said.

"Imagine if we can get all those guys going, we haven't yet. That's a testament of how good this team can be and is right now, but we don't want to keep experimenting like that.

"I'm expecting the same energy, less turnovers and more guys making shots against Melbourne."

The coach did however stress the Hawks could ill afford to give up leads against United, like they did in their win over the Breakers.

"Going to Melbourne if we have the opportunity to be 12-14 up we got to keep the pressure on, we can't allow our 11 first-half turnovers, which ended up 18 for the game, and allow a team like Melbourne to capitalise of it, we got to be better at it."

The Hawks had success cutting off "the head of the snake" so to speak in keeping Breakers star Parker Jackson-Cartwright relatively quiet but Tatum said Illawarra would have a more difficult time containing Melbourne's star players.

"They are a United team, they have multiple guys, we just can't pick one, we have to make it difficult for everybody," he said.

"I can't pinpoint one person. I think we did a pretty good job against the bigs last time we played them, then [Matthew] Dellavedova made a couple of threes, [Chris] Goulding made a couple of threes, but we were right there.

"I think if we adopt a similar strategy and make less mistakes, we'll be in a good spot."

Game one on Thursday night at John Cain Arena tips-off at 7.30pm.

Game two will be played at WIN Entertainment Centre in Wollongong on Sunday, March 10 from 3pm with game three if necessary to be played back at John Cain Arena on Wednesday, March 13 from 7.30pm.

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