Rob Beveridge is now an NBL championship coach and he is thankful to the Perth Wildcats for giving him the chance to see through the plans that he tried to put in place elsewhere.

Beveridge fulfilled one of his dreams to coach an NBL team when he took over the West Sydney Razorbacks/Sydney Spirit in the last two seasons, and there he tried to build a team similar to the one he did in Perth, but that was pulled from under him when the Spirit folded.

His original plan was to then look overseas to continue his coaching career, but when the Perth Wildcats came calling he seriously considered the opportunity and then accepted, and now couldn’t be happier to be a championship winning coach.

"It's a really hard emotion to describe. There's relief, I'm overawed by it as well when I look in the changeroom and realise how young we actually are. That's the challenge now to try and continue to keep them level-headed like we did all year and want to come back next year and improve," Beveridge said.

"I'm a competitor and I want to win all the time. That's what I even did in Sydney, I took at the time the worst team in the league and wanted to build it up and that dream was taken away from me, but I was given an opportunity to re-do that in Perth, with a financially secure club, the best fans in the country and the best management.

"The way everything is run has put me in a position to be able to excel and I'm extremely thankful. I was at the bottom of the basketball doldrums, it was really bad and I was out of here, but I was thrown a lifeline here in Perth and to achieve this is unbelievable."

Game 3 of the Grand Final series certainly wasn’t an easy one, and never was going to be, with Wollongong a dangerous, disciplined and talented team.

The Hawks did open up an 11-point lead in the second quarter, but the Wildcats took control with a 14-0 run inspired by some amazing shots from Kevin Lisch to finish the third quarter and eventually go on to win 96-72.

Beveridge was concerned by things he saw on Tuesday's loss in Wollongong to force the deciding game, but was confident the plans that were in place for Friday's game would work and that's exactly how it turned out.

"I was very concerned because when they get leads, because they are so disciplined and they've got experienced players, they can extend. What I've found with our group is that we can get out to a margin but take our foot off. When we were down by 11, I thought we could be in a bit of trouble here but we really dug in," he said.

"The whole plan in the last couple of days was going back to what we do well. Wollongong dictated the tempo on Tuesday and that's why they won. They are so good in the half-court and we picked the ball up just over the halfway line and they kicked our butts.

"If we played like that there was no way we would win and the whole game plan was about continuous pressure the whole time and hoping in the final quarter we broke their backs. Obviously that happened in the third quarter and that pressure is what we're about in Perth."