Triple treat as Hawks soar high on road to recovery
Chris Pike |
With a triple-double from Will “Davo” Hickey, hot shooting from QJ Peterson and more dominance from JaVale McGee, the Illawarra Hawks have swooped to a 107-90 road win over the Cairns Taipans.
Hickey delivered the first triple-double of the NBL season at the Cairns Convention Centre on Friday with 19 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists.
Peterson put up 22 points on 4-of-6 three-point shooting, with McGee again dominant inside with 28 points, six rebounds and two assists on 12-of-13 field-goal shooting.
Hawks coach Justin Tatum couldn’t fault his team’s ability to back up Wednesday’s win over Melbourne United.
“Our performance was really (strong), especially coming off Wednesday playing at a high level and we didn’t want to drop that intensity,” he said.
“We understand that Cairns is short-manned and our mentality was to keep coming and putting pressure on them as much as we can, and I loved the effort the guys came out and played with.
“They found ways to dominate and score in the paint and make it tough for Cairns.”
McGee was fresh off the best scoring game of his professional career with 37 points and 14 rebounds in Wednesday night’s home win for the reigning champs.
The Snakes had snapped their losing run in Tasmania last Saturday, but had to come up with something inventive on McGee. They went super small and did not turn to their own veteran centre, Marcus Lee.
It’s hard to say it didn’t work, with the Taipans knocking down 10 first-half three-pointers to only trail by four at the main break, with Mojave King hitting three of those on his best career night.
The Taipans were in touch before McGee scored six quick points to open the second half, and the Hawks began to pull away.
Despite having shot 4-of-23 in his first three NBL games, Peterson hit two triples to close the third quarter for Illawarra’s lead to grow to 13, before they sealed the deal for the 17-point victory.
It’s back-to-back wins for the Hawks (4-6) as their championship defence builds momentum.
Victory was achieved without a big say from another of their stars, Tyler Harvey, who finished with 11 points on 1-of-8 three-point shooting.
Cairns (3-9) remain in last place, and while they sorely missed Sam Waardenburg and Reyne Smith, it was a night of opportunities for others.
In just his third match since signing to replace the injured Alex Higgins-Titsha, King had the best game of his 76-game NBL career with 32 points on 13-of-16 shooting overall and 6-of-8 from deep.
Kyrin Galloway had 15 points and seven rebounds, with Jack McVeigh adding 13 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
It was Cairns’ efforts while McGee was off the floor that most disappointed Taipans coach Adam Forde.
“It was frustrating when he subbed out and we felt like we could capitalise, that’s probably where Illawarra did the most damage, and credit to them,” he said.
“That’s when we went too much to ‘iso’ ball and were too clunky when we had to stay methodical with what we wanted to do, and that’s something we have to work on.”
AAP
