South East Melbourne Phoenix have continued their resurgence with a tremendous New Year's Eve showing on the road to knock off the league-leading Illawarra Hawks in Wollongong.
The Phoenix lost their first five games of the season but are now emerging as genuine threats on the back of a terrific all-round performance to win 110-105 at WIN Entertainment Centre.
The visitors opened up a 12-point lead in the first half and then came up with some huge defensive plays for a late 9-2 run to set up the five-point win that handed the Hawks their only two losses from their last seven matches.
The Hawks were back home for just the second time since November 28 and in hot form with five straight wins, averaging 109.9 points.
But the Phoenix arrived on a mission.
South East Melbourne hadn’t played since beating Adelaide by 20 points on December 21 and put together just about the perfect first half.
Joe Wieskamp had a career-best 17 points already, helping the Phoenix to a 60-49 lead with two minutes in the half to go.
This was due to the Hawks coming to life after shooting 28 per cent from the field in the opening period, scoring the last 10 points of the first half.
Tensions rose in the third quarter with Hawks coach Justin Tatum picking up a technical foul, adding to the one gained by counterpart Josh King in the second quarter, and by the end of the third quarter the scores were locked at 84-84.
But just as the Hawks appeared to be grabbing momentum, the Phoenix came up with three huge stops that led to five of nine points in a 9-2 run that secured the win to improve them to 10-9 in the season.
Nathan Sobey delivered 25 points with four rebounds and four assists while Wieskamp ended up with 22 points and six boards, Matt Hurt 17 points and five rebounds, and Derrick Walton Jr 17 points and 11 assists.
Phoenix coach King liked that his team won through effort in the last two minutes.
"I think we won the game in that last two minutes and I felt like we were the tougher team in the last two minutes of the game," he said.
"I'm just really proud of the collective effort from my team."
Illawarra scored triple-figures again for the eighth straight game and remain on top at 13-6 despite the loss and even with 21 offensive rebounds for 22 second-chance points.
Tyler Harvey ended up with 20 points and three assists, Sam Froling 18 points and 10 rebounds, Davo Hickey 18 points, six boards and four assists, and Trey Kell III 16 points and two assists.
"It came down to our attention to detail and little small things with some careless turnovers late," Hawks coach Tatum said.
"We only had three turnovers going into the half and four going into the fourth quarter, and ended up with eight so it's just our attention to detail.
"It was the same way we lost to them last time with crucial turnovers at crucial point of times."
