Hawks hit back to hammer JackJumpers

The Illawarra Hawks responded in the most emphatic fashion imaginable to a first loss of NBL25 by putting a hurting on the visiting Tasmania JackJumpers with Saturday's 109-76 victory.

The Hawks were back at WIN Entertainment Centre after dropping their first game of the season last Saturday to the Adelaide 36ers after a slow start, but that was anything but a problem this time around.

Illawarra raced out to a 12-2 lead to open the contest and never looked back with the lead out beyond 20 points in the second quarter, out to 32 by three quarter-time and they would end up winning by 33 over the reigning champions.

The Hawks improve to 4-1 as a result of the thumping win on the back of putting up 64 points in the paint, scoring 24 points off Tasmania's 18 turnovers, 19 fast break points and 18 second chance points from 21 offensive boards.

Sam Froling was a beast with 21 points and five rebounds while Tyler Harvey was on fire early on his way to 19 points.

Darius Days had another 15 points, eight rebounds and four steals with Davo Hickey contributing 15 points, eight boards and three assists, Trey Kell III 10 points, three rebounds and three assists, and Hyunjung Lee 10 points.

Wani Swaka Lo Buluk did another brilliant defensive job keeping Milton Doyle to four points and seven turnovers along with having eight points and three rebounds himself.

Hawks coach Justin Tatum felt it was time the NBL public gave his side the respect they deserved after the big win improved their record to 4-1.

"We're the highest-scoring team in the league, we have one of the deepest teams in the league," he said.

"There should be some respect factor there and we're playing well right now.

"We're happy with where we're at, and we know we can get it 10 times better."

The JackJumpers are now 2-3 to open their championship defence and suffered their biggest ever defeat on being outrebounded by 17 highlighting the flat showing.

Jordon Crawford top-scored with 19 points and five assists with 4/7 three-point shooting with Will Magnay adding 11 points, four rebounds and four assists, and Majok Deng 10 points, three steals and two boards.

"It was just an old-fashioned butt-whooping," JackJumpers coach Scott Roth said.

"The energy and effort they played with, we didn't come close to even matching that, before you can even get into the actual basketball aspects.

"It was actually very fun to watch, to be honest. I thought they were fantastic."

Spurred on by a slow start at home last week to the Adelaide 36ers, the Hawks came out flying racing to a 12-2 lead on the back of three balls to Darius Days, Tyler Harvey and Wani Swaka Lo Buluk.

It was then a 24-10 when Harvey turned another three-pointer into a four-point play for Illawarra with the home team ending up leading 32-15 by the end of one.

There were brief signs of a JackJumpers fightback in the second half including Jordon Crawford going into half-time with 15 points with 3/4 three-point shooting, but the Hawks were proving unstoppable.

Illawarra went into the break leading 57-39 on the back of nine offensive rebounds and forcing the JackJumpers into nine turnovers with Harvey putting up 16 points on perfect 3/3 three-point shooting.

The dominance continued from the Hawks with another 27 points to 13 in the third quarter with the lead ballooning to 32 points by three quarter-time.

It was party time for the Hawks in the fourth quarter as they handed Tasmania a biggest ever defeat settling on the 33-point triumph.

The Hawks are on the road next Saturday night to the Cairns Taipans while the JackJumpers will host the Sydney Kings on Friday night in Launceston.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 109 (Froling 21, Harvey 19, Days 15, Hickey 15)

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 76 (Crawford 19, Magnay 11, Deng 10)

BOX SCORE