South East Melbourne Phoenix captain Mitch Creek has managed to find some positives about his team's solidarity, despite their hammering at the hands of the Illawarra Hawks.
The Hawks have taken Phoenix's place in the NBL top six with their 116-78 drubbing of the undermanned visitors at WIN Entertainment Centre in Wollongong on Friday night - the biggest win of the NBL season as they also took their play-in position.
The Hawks dominated a Phoenix team missing import trio Gary Browne (groin), Alan Williams (knee) and Abdel Nader (hand) for the 38-point hammering which continued their stunning form under new coach Justin Tatum.
After starting the season 2-7, Illawarra have won six of eight under Tatum to now sit in sixth place at 8-9 while South East Melbourne slipped 9-11 and down to eighth position.
Not only have the Phoenix lost five of the last six matches, but the defeats have come at an average of 25 points.
Along the way they lost Craig Moller for the season, axed Will Cummings and were without Creek for three matches before his return last Saturday.
Things then hit rock bottom in Wollongong with the absence of Browne, Williams and Nader. The result was a dismal, yet somewhat understandable, showing but Creek remained upbeat.
The 334-game star forward top-scored with 24 points but amid the wounding defeat, he was most pleased with the way his team never turned on each other.
"Whenever you're down three Americans who are significant pieces, everyone's got to step up and it's really hard to do that sometimes," Creek said.
"You commend the effort and we stayed together as a group, and we did a decent job of not breaking out of huddles.
"We got together, we were all talking, there was no biting back or attitude, and there was a sense of staying together to try and weather the storm the best we can.
"The initial signs were that we at least stayed together and weren’t breaking apart, which is always a positive sign."
It's the opposite story at the Hawks as their stunning turnaround continued. Tatum's job has been remarkable but all he wants is the group to keep improving.
"If we keep playing this well it's only going to take us up, we can't go back down," Tatum said.
"Right now we're not too locked in on finishing sixth, fifth or fourth, we just want to keep playing well and see how well this team can really gel and get better every day.
"Once we see that, everybody else will see that and they will know we're a serious team, and not just a team of hype or doing it because of a coaching change."
