Gritty JackJumpers fall agonisingly short

The Tasmania JackJumpers showed trademark grit in a fifth game in 11 days to close 2025 with 17 points from Josh Bannan in the fourth quarter and only a split second cost them taking the Illawarra Hawks to overtime.

The JackJumpers arrived on New Year's Eve at the WIN Entertainment Centre to take on the Hawks looking to back up the win at home less than 48 hours earlier against the South East Melbourne Phoenix and trying to end 2025 with some momentum.

The Hawks also needed the win to stay in touch of the top six and the defending champions did open up a 12-point lead late in the second quarter and then again early in the fourth.

Tasmania opened up the second half strongly thanks to David Johnson and then in the fourth quarter it was Bannan who took charge scoring 17 of the team's 25 points in those last 10 minutes.

It set up a frantic finish and with the JackJumpers down by two on the last possession, Johnson had his three-point shot attempt blocked but Bryce Hamilton grabbed it and put up a layup, but time just expired for Illawarra to hold on to win by two.

Bannan ended the game with 25 points, six rebounds and two assists on 11/14 shooting from the field with point guard Tyger Campbell contributing 18 points and three assists with 2/3 shooting from downtown.

David Johnson had a hot start to the second half on his way to 16 points, five rebounds, three steals and two assists with Majok Deng contributing 11 points, two boards and two assists, Bryce Hamilton 10 points, two rebounds and two assists, and Nick Marshall eight points and four assists.

The Hawks decided to go with a twin tower front court with Sam Froling finishing with 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, and JaVale McGee 16 points, six boards and six blocked shots.

Tyler Harvey added 15 points and QJ Peterson 13 with five rebounds and five assists.

Illawarra did come out starting strongly on their home floor with an early 6-2 advantage before Tasmania got rolling with 10 consecutive points including a pair of triples to Nick Marshall to see them leading 12-6.

Illawarra responded again to go into quarter-time with the 23-18 advantage before the Hawks then opened up the second frame with consecutive three-pointers to push their lead out to 11.

It grew to 12 not long after with another bomb from outside by QJ Peterson and even with a couple of threes in response from Bryce Hamilton for Tasmania and another from Tyger Campbell, the Hawks went into the half-time break on top 50-39.

Tasmania then made a blistering start to the second half scoring the opening 10 points in the space of two minutes with David Johnson on fire hitting eight of those 10 as the gap was closed to just one.

The JackJumpers kept the momentum going with another four straight points to have started the half 14-4, and by keeping it going they even briefly hit the lead after a pair of free throws to Majok Deng.

The Hawks did respond, though, and had pushed their lead back out to eight again by three quarter-time and then it was again a 12-point lead once more early in the fourth period.

That's when Josh Bannan put on his Superman cape for the JackJumpers the rest of the game starting with the first five points of a 7-0 run to get it back to a five-point ball game.

Not long after he had another six straight points before Campbell also scored to top off a 10-0 streak to tie scores up with 4:18 to play at 84-84.

That set up quite the tense finish over the last four minutes with the JackJumpers continuing to have to play catch up but they forced a turnover on the side out of bounds pass from the Hawks with Bannan scoring in transition with 11.6 seconds to go.

That gave him 17 points for the fourth quarter and cut Illawarra's lead to one before Todd Blanchfield was fouled and made one at the stripe with 3.0 seconds on the clock.

That gave the JackJumpers a chance and while Johnson's three-point attempt was blocked by Davo Hickey, Hamilton swopped on the deflection and made a reverse layup – but unfortunately time expired before the ball left his hands.

Having now just completed a run of five games in 11 days, the JackJumpers don't have long before a first game of 2026 when they host Melbourne United back at MyState Bank Arena on Saturday night.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2025/26 – IGNITE CUP BY DISNEY+

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 90 (Bannan 25, Campbell 18, Johnson 16)

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 92 (McGee 16, Froling 16, Harvey 15)

BOX SCORE