Illawarra punched their ticket for Thursday's semi-final opener with a tense win over the Breakers in Wollongong on Monday.

It appeared a great escape in the eyes of some after Justin Tatum's side squandered a red-hot start and 15-point lead to trail midway through the final term.

A Justin Robinson-led rearguard action got the Hawks home on their own floor, but a repeat of the patchy performances produced in two post-season outings will fall well short of the league's most stacked team.

While his team will need to find several more gears to test the regular-season champions, Harvey insists the Hawks aren't daunted by the task of heading south.

"I don't think this team fears anything," Harvey said.

"We know it's going to be a good series, we know that no team is going to lay down in this situation.

"That's what you want, you want both teams to be playing their best basketball at this part of the year, but I don't think there's any fear going in there.

"They've been the top of the league all year, so we know it's going to be a battle. We're just preparing for a war and that's what it's going to be for the full 40 minutes of every game."

The win over the Breakers continued a trend of the Hawks producing their best performances under Tatum with their backs to the wall.

A three-game series sees a return to Wollongong sitting in their back pocket, but Harvey says there are no real second chances in post-season basketball.

"I think you've got to go into every game with the do or die mindset," Harvey said.

"I don't think you can look at it as it's a three game series and if you don't play well this one game you have another one. No.

"It's the playoffs and every game is literally life or death. I think that's the mindset we're going to take going into every single game from this point on.

"You can't lay down, it's do our die every single night. Early on in the year, those situations [against the Breakers] might have rattled us a little bit.

"As we've grown and matured as a team we're comfortable in those situations knowing we'll figure out a way to give ourselves the best chance to pull it out.

"It's the playoffs and things happen. You've just got to keep your head and take it one play at a time.

"You can't let emotions get the best of you in these situations going down to Melbourne. I think JT has done a great job at just keeping us stable, especially in those high intense situations."

The late-season resurgence makes it three trips to the post-season in Harvey's four years as a Hawks import. That tenure is tipped to continue, particularly if he secures Australian citizenship.

It will likely result in further playoff runs, but the 30-year-old knows the chance to rise from the dead and secure a title just one season on from a franchise-low 3-25 campaign is an opportunity unlikely to arise again.

"That's a message to everybody on the team that we've been talking about, these situations are very rare," Harvey said.

"You want to make the most out of these moments because you look up and it can be over in the snap of a finger.

"Everybody on this team, we all love each other, we all want to keep playing with each other for as long as we can. We were not ready for it to end last week.

"You just try to take advantage of these moments and give yourselves the best opportunity. Deep down, I know that these moments are so rare and it's hard to get to this level, the playoffs, year in year out.

"We definitely don't take that part for granted and JT is definitely preaching that message to us."