The Illawarra Hawks have continued their dramatic turnaround under coach Justin Tatum, producing a commanding second half performance in a 91-84 New Year's Eve victory against the Adelaide 36ers.
Not only was it a battle of the bottom two teams in the NBL at WIN Entertainment Centre, but also the two teams under new coaches.
Scott Ninnis is back in charge for a second time in Adelaide, having replaced CJ Bruton.
Tatum has taken over at the Hawks from Jacob Jackomas, and his side kept their roll going on Sunday.
It has been a decidedly different-looking team under Tatum, with a greater buy-in and effort defensively, and vastly improved execution in attack.
However, that wasn’t necessarily on show in the first half.
Adelaide went into the break leading 41-40 thanks to a strong finish to the first half, with Isaac Humphries dominating the battle of Australian centres against Sam Froling.
Humphries had 20 points to half-time for the Sixers, but after four minutes of the third quarter the Hawks had blown the game wide open, and Ninnis had already used up two timeouts.
Illawarra went on a 23-4 scoring streak to start the second half, including three-point bombs to Tyler Harvey, Justin Robinson and Wani Swaka Lo Buluk.
The Hawks went on with the job from there, leading by as many as 18 points and winning by seven to improve to 7-9 for the season. They are also 5-2 since Tatum took over.
It was another all-round team performance, with Robinson producing 19 points and three assists.
Gary Clark added 14 points and 12 rebounds, Swaka Lo Buluk 12 points, Harvey 11 points, four rebounds and three assists, and Todd Blanchfield 10 points.
Tatum was pleased that the Hawks came out how they did to start the second half to blow the game open.
"I really wasn’t happy with the beginning of the first half, but we made adjustments at the start of the second," he said.
"In the first four or five minutes of the third quarter, that was pretty much the group showing what we've been trying to build towards."
Adelaide (5-13) remain bottom of the table.
Humphries finished with 26 points and nine rebounds, DJ Vasiljevic added 17 points and four boards, and Trey Kell had 16 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds for the first triple-double of the NBL season.
Ninnis was frustrated that the slow start to the second half cost his team.
"It's a repeat for us again and we just have these quarters where we get so bogged down offensively," he said.
"We then compound the problem at the other end and we talk about it a lot, and I was really pleased with the first half.
"We then came out in that third quarter and just couldn’t get anything done.
"I'm burning timeouts left, right and centre, and trying different line-ups. We just couldn’t get it done."
