Phoenix Win in a One Point Thriller

A monster clutch performance from import playmaker Xavier Munford has given the South East Melbourne Phoenix a thrilling one-point road victory over Illawarra Hawks.

Forced to deal without coach Simon Mitchell and four key players including captain Kyle Adnam, assistant Judd Flavell made the call to put the ball in Munford’s capable hands and said “lead us home”.
And that’s exactly what the multi-faceted American did, dealing dimes and answering every shot the Hawks took at the Phoenix.

His counterpunches were brilliant - every time Illawarra made a run, Munford was there to either find a bucket or an open teammate.
So it was fitting that it fell to the man they call 'X' to ice the game.

Down by a point with 1.1 seconds left, Munford launched a contested three in hope of a dream finish, but the shot was off. That wasn’t the end, though, the pressure from Hawks guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes was deemed illegal by the referees.

One of the Phoenix’s best free throw shooters, Munford stepped up to the charity stripe and potted his 23rd and 24th point of the night to lead his side home by the narrowest of margins.

(Xavier Munford took Phoenix over the line for the win.)

It was a marquee win for the Phoenix, who bounced back in quick fashion from a 22-point defeat at the hands of the Wildcats on Saturday, sprinting out to a 26-12 lead by making their first 10 shots of the game in a brilliant display of inside-outside team basketball.

They return home for another quick turnaround, a visit from the Sydney Kings awaits Thursday.

The Result

Illawarra Hawks 87-88 South East Melbourne Phoenix

The Numbers

Hawks
Harvey: 20 points
S. Froling: 17 points, 5 rebounds
Reath: 15 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists
Rathan-Mayes: 13 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists

Phoenix
Munford: 24 points, 5 assists
Creek: 20 points
Le’afa: 13 points
Broekhoff: 11 points, 16 rebounds
Zhou: 11 points, 7 rebounds

(Mitch Creek may have been kept quiet but still had 20 points.)

The Turning Point

How do you pick a turning point in a game with so many ebbs and flows and lead changes.  The moment that decided the game was Munford’s pair of free throws. The tension was palpable as the Phoenix awaited a coach’s challenge of the referee’s foul call on Rathan-Mayes.

Well, it was tense for everyone else, except Munford. He made the first two and then Creek told him to miss the third, as Goorjian had blown his last timeout on the challenge, the ensuing rebound leaving the Hawks with no time to get a meaningful shot away.

The Player of the Game

Xavier Munford
Munford was brilliant, but let’s talk about Rowdy for a moment. Ryan Broekhoff took stand-in coach Judd Flavell’s call to clean up the rebounds to heart, ripping down an incredible 16 and adding 11 points on his way to a double-double. Broekhoff is in the midst of  shooting slump, but he is impacting the game in a variety of ways and even caught the eye of Boomers coach Brian Goorjian

(Ryan Broekhoff had his first double-double in his career with 11 points and 16 rebounds.)

The Play of the Game

There was no moment more exciting than in the second quarter when Rowdy broke up a Hawks play on offence and went coast-to-coast. His lay-up try rimmed out, but a soaring Munford skied to put a lid on the bucket, stuffing it through to end a 10-0 Hawks run and re-establish a four-point buffer. Munford soared so high he nearly hit his face on the ring.

From the Coach

“For us, he’s the driver of the offence. I thought he did a great job with either finding guys or himself getting to the basket, got himself to the foul line, big ones down the stretch and for us, that’s where it starts. The last play of the game, it wasn’t tidy at all, I just wanted to get the ball in this guy’s hands and let him go and do his thing.”
- Stand-in coach Judd Flavell on Xavier Munford’s impact

From the Player

“I was planning on making it, Creek came up to me and said just miss it. I asked him ‘are you sure?’ He said ‘yeah, just miss it’. I just wanted to get the best miss I could. I had already given up hamburgers earlier. Just wanted to get a good miss and get out of here with the win.”
- Xavier Munford on his mindset as he stepped up to ice the game

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Phoenix Media (7/2/22)