BOXSCORE

Mark Worthington led the Gold Coast Blaze to a 91-50 annihilation of the Wollongong Hawks in Saturday night's spiteful encounter on the Gold Coast.

The Australian Boomer was bruising in defence and lethal in attack, finishing with 25 points, five rebounds and two steals with strong support from Adris Deleon and Adam Gibson (both 13 points).

Only new recruit Ayinde Ubaka (12 points) and Tim Coenraad managed double figures for Wollongong as they struggled to find a way through the jamming Gold Coast defence.

Worthington found himself receiving verbal and physical attention from the Hawks, who became frustrated by the physicality and lop-sided scoreline.

Veteran Hawks coach Gordie McLeod received a rare technical foul for questioning referee Scott Beker, and said after the game the Blaze have "stepped it up a lot of notches" since the teams' last meeting.

"That was like going through a tsunami,'' a stunned McLeod said.

"They manhandled us. There was no way we were going to be able to run and execute the way they were defending.''

The brutish defence is a style that Worthington relishes.

"It works,'' he said. "It's doing a lot more for us as a team than what our other style was.''

But he declared the Blaze were far from the finished product yet.

"The last two weeks have just been a glimpse at what we do (but) we still have our breakdowns and we're not happy about it,'' he said.

"If we were peaking right now then I would be worried. We've got the top two in our sites, they're the benchmark.''

The Blaze ambushed the Hawks early with its rugged defence, knocking the visitors out of their offensive rhythm and leaping to a 17-7 lead.

The injection of Ubaka made some headway against the Gold Coast defence, the guard scoring eight points including a late triple to keep the Hawks within range, 26-17 down after 10 minutes.

Deleon found his range early in the second term, his two long-range jumpshots pushing the lead out to 13 before the technical foul on McLeod increased the advantage to 17.

"We were looking for referees to bail us out and that didn't happen,'' McLeod said.

"Any tech foul doesn't help, but there was a frustration there."

Wollongong launched a mini-fightback with three consecutive baskets late in the term, but they were unable to build any pressure against the impregnable Gold Coast defence, going to the main break trailing 47-29.

Tempers threatened to boil over in the third quarter as Worthington and Larry Davidson came together before Glen Saville and Anthony Petrie exchanged pleasantries.

The dam wall then cracked wide open as the Gold Coast ran roughshod over the visitors to record its fourth consecutive win.

Gold Coast Blaze 91 (Worthington 25, Deleon 13, Gibson 13)
Wollongong Hawks 50 (Ubaka 12, Coenraad 10)

Crowd: 3122 at Gold Coast Convention Centre