Nathan Sobey has fired on his return from injury as Brisbane won a fourth-straight match, 110-103 over Illawarra, to create a logjam near the top of the NBL ladder.
The in-form shooting guard (25 points) missed Wednesday's defeat of Tasmania with a foot injury and provided the early spark with 22 first-half points on his home court on Sunday afternoon.
Mitch Norton (18 points), Tyrell Harrison (18 points, seven rebounds) and Chris Smith (19 points) were also regular contributors as the Bullets dealt well with the pre-game scratchings of forwards Josh Bannan and Casey Prather due to illness.
Bullets coach Justin Schueller was forced to shuffle his deck, playing centre Aron Baynes as a power forward and setting the versatile Sam McDaniel front and back-court defensive assignments.
"Really satisfied," Schueller said.
"We've been thrown some challenges this week; third game in eight days. To come out that end (with three wins) has been outstanding.
"Those boys (Prather and Bannan) got to the arena and looked like they were the walking dead, so we sent them home.
"It doesn't matter what we've been thrown this week, we've found a way."
The Bullets led for most of the contest and their biggest first-half lead, among many small runs, was 12 points.
But those spurts were answered each time by the visitors, with Tyler Harvey (29 points, six-of-11 triples) on song to keep the Hawks within three at halftime.
Ball-users Norton, Shannon Scott and McDaniel didn't have a turnover between them, as the Bullets gave it away just seven times.
The Hawks were backing up from a double-overtime defeat of the JackJumpers in Tasmania on Friday and the Bullets' attacking spread eventually proved too much.
A pair of Norton triples in the third quarter pushed the margin back to double figures and the hosts confidently closed out the contest despite Smith fouling out with more than four minutes left.
Illawarra (9-10) dropped to sixth after just their third loss in 10 games and first in five since Justin Tatum's ascension to head coach.
Brisbane briefly took fourth spot before Sydney's win on Sunday, but both sides and third-placed Tasmania now all boast identical 11-11 records.
It is rare territory for the Bullets, who have boasted a winning regular-season record just once and a lone finals campaign in the seven seasons since the club's NBL return.
A hero in Friday's win, Gary Clark (13 points, eight rebounds, three assists) was kept relatively quiet while Sam Froling (15 points, seven rebounds) briefly threatened to blow it open for the Hawks.
"Allowing 30 points in the first quarter, allowing Brisbane to get their groove going ... once you get a team going like that it's tough to stop," Tatum said.
"But the positive message they're giving each other (post-game) is genuine.
"1-1 (for the round) we'll live with, but we're not dealing with 0-2. We're a better team than that.
"And we have another double-header next week ... we can go from 10th to third with a two-game winning streak."
