Going rogue: Hawks urged to trust offence

After a strong win over Melbourne last weekend, the Illawarra Hawks welcomed the defending champions into town on Thursday, hoping to continue an upward trajectory in their season.

Unfortunately for the hosts, that form was short-lived, with the Kings easily winning the all-NSW derby.

After the 26-point defeat to the Kings, coach Justin Tatum tried to pinpoint what’s going wrong with his group.

“At times, going rogue offensively; I got guys at times that feel they can or haven’t touched the ball in a while, who like to go and get a shot up, instead of trusting the offence and making Sydney work on the defensive end,” Tatum said.

Tyler Harvey came out firing for Illawarra, scoring 15 points in the first quarter, as the Hawks trailed by just one point at quarter time, before things began to unravel.

“Sometime in the second quarter where they started to pull away a little bit,” Tatum said about when he thought the game slipped away.

“Turning the ball over; we went into some iso ball here and there, and they just turned their defensive intensity up and found a way to get easy baskets.”

If it began to get out of reach in the second quarter, by the third quarter the game was all but decided, with the Kings ramping up the heat and the Hawks struggling to respond, being outscored by 18 points in that 10-minute period alone.

“That’s us as a whole,” Tatum said on his team’s offensive issues.

“I’m not here to call out no names, because there’s no 'I in team' in my group.”

Tatum looked ahead to the team’s next game on Saturday night against the Brisbane Bullets and what he hopes to see from his team.

“Offensive teams shouldn’t be too much of a problem with this group,” he added.

“If we just trust each other, move the ball and create a shot for others, not just ourselves, and we get open shots, I think they’ll start falling.”

Saturday’s Round 6 fixture between Illawarra and Brisbane tips off at 5.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN, 9Go! and 9Now.