'It sucks, it's shit:' Hawks vow to bounce back from Melbourne heartbreak

But neither Tatum or Hawks captain Sam Froling could hide the pain they were feeling in the immediate aftermath of Illawarra's season-ending 100-94 loss to Melbourne United on Wednesday night.

"It sucks. It's just shit," an emotional Froling said post-game.

"But the exciting thing is so many guys are coming back from this team.

"JT is here for another three years. We wanted to get it done this year because we love this team and everyone involved.

"It would have been awesome to win with this team.

"But going forward, it's exciting."

The 24-year-old was one of the Hawks best at John Cain Arena and certainly their best player in the three-game series against United.

Froling finished with 23 points and four boards in a dominant showing against Melbourne's bigs Jo Lual-Acuil Jr and Ariel Hukporti.

His efforts alongside Justin Robinson (19 points, three rebounds and seven assists) went a long way to helping the brave Hawks fight back every time United opened up double digit leads.

The desperate Hawks almost took it to a third straight overtime game when Tyler Harvey hit a long three to reduce the deficit to only four points with just on eight seconds remaining.

But United kept their cool down the stretch to ice the win courtesy of two three-throws from player-of-the-match Shea Ili (22 points and three rebounds).

Froling couldn't hide his disappointment post-game but stressed the Hawks, who recovered from a 2/7 win/loss record to start the season to fall just one-win short of playing in the NBL championship deciding series, expected to do much better next season.

"We weren't big fans of the fairy tale Cinderella story," he said.

"This team was put together at the start of the year to win. We started poorly, we fixed it and we got back to where we believe we should have been.

"That was a hell of a series against the best team all year and we believe we probably could have beat them.

"We should have beat them.

"I'm sure there's a lot of stuff, we'll go back and watch that. We could fix this....but it's a bit bittersweet.

"We believe, and we know we could have done it. It just sucks."

Tatum was also disappointed, especially with how the Hawks started and their poor free-throw shooting on the night.

The rookie coach expected the pain of defeat to sting the players for a long time and make them hungrier to come back bigger and better next season.

"There is a list of positive and negatives but that's something for another day with this group," Tatum said when asked if he planned to make changes in the off-season.

"I think this is gonna hurt enough for us, not to be reminded of what we could have done or what we need to do for the next couple of months.

"I didn't inherit the team, this is my team.

"I had my hand selected or knew who was going to be a part of this team as I was coming in as an assistant. So I was building that relationship there.

"This is my group. I'm proud of them and of being able to put ourselves in an opportunity like this because our season could have been over February 18^th, we could have been home or doing whatever, but our guys kept fighting and kept playing and so that just shows us where our future is."

If Tatum has his way a future Hawks side will include the current crop.

Clark, the Hawks season MVP is a priority, as he is for a number of other NBL clubs, after acknowledging he wanted to continue playing in Australia next season.

"I want everybody back on this team," Tatum said.

"But we know this is a professional league, we got to do our best to retain and get them back.

"But GC and Sam, everybody knows I want the same 12-13 guys that was in there.

'If that doesn't work out we will find a way to make it work, but that is our first priority."