South East Melbourne Phoenix vs Illawarra Hawks Live Stream & Tips - Hawks to secure NBL Championship Series slot

Jeremy Darke

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Last updated: 01 Mar 2025

Jeremy Darke 01 Mar 2025

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South East Melbourne Phoenix vs Illawarra Hawks expert predictions for Sunday’s Semi-Final NBL matchup
Hawks backed to win the series 2-0 after a 101-94 Game 1 win
Phoenix struggled in the second half despite halftime lead
Tyler Harvey, Trey Kell III and Sam Froling expected to perform well

Expired

Hawks vs Phoenix Game 2 verdict (Getty)

South East Melbourne Phoenix vs Illawarra Hawks Preview
Head to Head
South East Melbourne Phoenix Form
Illawarra Hawks Form

South East Melbourne Phoenix vs Illawarra Hawks Preview

The Hawks are backed to wrap up the semi-final series 2-0 after getting up 101-94 in Game 1. This one is tipped to stay under the total of 197.5 points with a big match from Sam Froling predicted.

South East Melbourne have lost 9 of 14 games when starting as a 4.5-point or less underdog in NBL25.
South East Melbourne have conceded over 100 points at home just twice this season.
Illawarra’s bench averaged 36PPG, ranked 1st in the NBL25 season.
Sam Froling has scored over 13.5 points in 5 of his past 8 games.

Head to Head

2024/25 NBL Finals Series

28/02/25: Illawarra 101 - 94 South East Melbourne

2024/25 Match Results

31/12/25: - Illawarra 105 - 110 South east Melbourne

30/11/24: South East Melbourne 103 - 100 Illawarra

26/10/24: South East Melbourne 88 - 82 Illawarra

South East Melbourne Phoenix Form

Just as they did against Perth in the Seeding Qualifier, South East Melbourne led heading into the halftime break in Game 1 of this series against Illawarra and failed to convert.

The Phoenix outscored the Hawks 34 - 23 in the second quarter, but came out of the rooms flat in the third and scored just 12 points to Illawarra’s 32 and the game was done from there.

In both Play-In matches the Phoenix failed to play for all four quarters and are not going to get past the number one team in the NBL if they disappear for any period of time against Illawarra.

The return of Derrick Walton Jr. was a success with the import scoring 15 points along with 11 rebounds in his first game in six weeks.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Phoenix. They drove to the net well, outsourcing the Hawks 48-40 in the paint, however they were hurt heavily from three.

Perimeter shooting has been an issue for the Phoenix all season, ranked ninth in the league with a 33.9 3P% and shot 34.6% from outside against the Hawks in game one, sinking just 9 from 26.

Illawarra Hawks Form

Game 1 ended with the right result for the Hawks, but I can not imagine that Justin Tatum would be completely pleased, especially being outscored by 11 points in the second quarter by giving up 34 points.

The response in the third was positive, however, a poor second quarter put them in a vulnerable position heading into the second half.

The Hawks bigs were fairly quiet for their standard, with Froling and Olbrich combining for just 17 points, however, Todd Blanchfield was firing from the bench with 16 points.

Illawarra found the space and looks they needed from the arc, sinking 14 threes from 33 attempts, which was the dagger in the side of the Phoenix.

Tyler Harvery (24 Pts + 4 Reb) and Trey Kell III (24 Pts + 10 Reb) grabbed the game by the horns, as expected. While the bench of Illawarra was the difference once again, outsourcing the Phoenix subs 36 - 23.