DESPITE losing a star before the game and then another in the second quarter, Illawarra Hawks dug deep to produce an incredible road win over Melbourne United to send the 2024/25 NBL Grand Final series to a decisive fifth game. Playing at home has become a poison chalice in the series, with the Hawks’ 80-71 victory making it four straight wins for the visiting side when they got up at John Cain Arena last night.

Considering they were already missing star backcourt talent Trey Kell III, when big man Sam Froling went down with a suspected Achilles injury in the second term, the odds were stacked against them. United had their own injury concern with the concussed Shea Ili missing, though the loss of Froling negated any advantage the Hawks had at either end.

After trailing by three points at quarter time, United got on top and started to feel the momentum, piling on 20 points to 13 in the second term with game three hero Matthew Dellavedova and fellow veteran Chris Goulding putting on a show. However the tide began to turn in the third with Illawarra starting with a 7-0 run, and 11 of the first 13 points.

Melbourne kept in touch thanks to Ian Clark who scored the last four points of the quarter to soak up a seven-point deficit and turn it into a three-point ball game with a quarter to play. A Goulding triple levelled the scores in the first six seconds of the fourth to indicate United was not going to go away, and he and Dellavedova got to work in single handedly keeping the home side in it.

However the scoring dried up for Melbourne, with United going more than four minutes without a basket and in that time the lead had grown to seven again. Any hope of a comeback was dashed when Darius Days – stepping up in the absence of Kell III – and Tyler Harvey nailed back-to-back triples with the lead out to double digits with two minutes on the clock.

Melbourne would not die wondering, going for long-range bombs, but ultimately despite closing the gap to as little as eight points with a minute to play, could not do enough and the Hawks came away with the nine-point victory, 80-71.

Days was just one point off a double-double, picking up nine points and 11 rebounds, while Harvey only shot at 26 per cent from the field (4/15) on his way to 12 points and four rebounds. Instead it was William Hickey (22 points, eight assists, six rebounds and three steals) who lit up the court en route to an MVP, while Lachlan Olbrich came off the bench to finish with 13 points, six rebounds and three assists in 26 minutes.

The veteran duo of Dellavedova (17 points, seven rebounds and six assists) and Goulding (17 points – four of nine from long-range – five rebounds and two assists) did the bulk of the heavy lifting with Clark (16 points, two rebounds, two assists and two steals). The trio combined for 50 of the side’s 71 points with the bigs largely contained for the most part.

Illawarra Hawks coach Justin Tatum agreed with the sentiment that it was the “bravest” performance he had seen from his charges, and could not praise his bench enough.

“We’ve never really been in that situation all year so it was a first for us. As you know it’s been about our bench, it’s been about our depth and so it’s an unfortunate situation with Trey and Sam right now, but it’s about our depth, the next guy up so the way the guys fell today was pretty good.”

Tatum also said they would “take a look at him” but he doubted Froling would be available for game five given the diagnosis was an Achilles injury. However the news was better for Kell III with Tatum saying his backcourt talent “should be” right to go for game five, however the club wanted to make sure he was “100 per cent or enough to go” before taking the court. Tatum further said Kell III was “extremely” close to playing in game four, but did not believe he could quite give 100 per cent and did not want anyone using any excuses in the game.

Game five takes place back at the WIN Entertainment Centre on Sunday, March 23 from 2:30pm where the 2024/25 NBL Champion will be decided.

NBL GRAND FINAL SERIES RESULTS:

Game 1: Illawarra Hawks (88) defeated by Melbourne United (96)
Game 2: Melbourne United (100) defeated by Illawarra Hawks (102)
Game 3: Illawarra Hawks (77 defeated by Melbourne United (83)
Game 4: Melbourne United (71) defeated by Illawarra Hawks (80)