Copes' Corner: Froling is Illawarra's finals x-factor

• NBL legend Lanard Copeland has joined Basketball.com.au as a columnist for the playoffs
• Copeland won two NBL championships with the Melbourne Tigers
• He has tipped Melbourne United to beat Illawarra 3-2

COPES' CORNER — An insight with NBL legend Lanard Copeland

The time is here for Sam Froling to become a great.

We all already know how good the Illawarra Hawks big man is but dominating an NBL championship series can start the process of putting his name amongst the best big men in the league’s recent history.

We spoke about him earlier in the season, I think he had a really big game and I think it was Damon Lowery who said, we need to see this every week from you, he has the capability of doing that but it's hard when you're on a team full of scorers.

It's going to be nice when you perform and a lot of the time, it’s still it's going to be nice when you don't need to perform. Not that they don't see you, other guys just go to work.

But everything is pointing in his direction this series.

For some reason his confidence is sky-high against Melbourne United, in his last three games against Dean Vickerman’s men, he’s averaged 16.6 points and nine rebounds.

Both teams have backcourts that can take over a game offensively. For Illawarra, it’s Trey Kell and Tyler Harvey and for Melbourne it's Chris Goulding and Ian Clark and I’m sure the focus of each coach defensively will be to lock them down and there’s no doubt that will open things up for another player to step up and make a name for themselves.

That man can definitely be Sam Froling. He’s younger, quicker and more athletic than Rob Loe, he can get Marcus Lee in foul trouble and provide a lot of problems in what is a pick and roll heavy game because he can roll and pop but also take them off the dribble.

He runs the floor extremely well, he finishes around the basket extremely well for a big, in game three against the Phoenix he didn't have to do anything, just 1-from-3 from the field and 12 rebounds because the other guys were on fire but there’s no doubt in my mind he will play a pivotal role against Melbourne United because he's had so much success against them this year.

I'm sure coach Justin Tatum will go back and watch film from when they played against Melbourne and he'll see the success Froling had. He'll put that in the mix and know we can go to that or we’re able to take advantage of this guy, let's run some plays for Sam to get him going.

Then everything is up to Froling to deliver and if he can, watch out, this could be a series we look back on further down the track in his career as a catalyst for just how good he became.

I played with some of NBL’s best big men, one of the best ever in fact in Mark Bradtke.

Now, Mark is completely different, just because of his size and the way he played. He was so much bigger, stronger and more experienced than most players he played against and so many people were just intimidated of him because of how big he was.

But there were times where me and Andrew Gaze went jump-shot happy and we didn't get him involved and he let us know and would say “hey man, I'm not here just to rebound, I can score as well” and that's why they called it the big three.

We always had to get him involved and he was very good at what he did.

Sam Froling can do the same thing this series. Trey Kell and Tyler Harvey are superstars but if they get too perimeter oriented, he can just remind them to get him a touch. There's a way to do it, I mean, you don't yell and scream at your boys, you just go and be smart about it, I learned this a long time ago.

What you do is you go up to your point guard and put your arm around him and say “hey I was open last time, have a look for me”. Or a lot of times when you can't get the ball, you go to the glass, get an offensive rebound, get some put backs and dunks because you know once you get going, the one thing about Justin Tatum is once realises he has a weapon inside, he's going to continue to go to it.

But you can’t just sit back and wait for touches, got get it yourself and dominate the game with rebounding.

As far as the championship series goes, I think Melbourne United have two of the best defensive guards in the league with Shea Ili and Matthew Dellavedova and I think they also have two of the best offensive guards in the league in Chris Golding and Ian Clark.

On commentary, we do a thing called the coach’s board and for Illawarra, I'm telling them I need to run Goulding and Clark off the three-point line, even if they score layups. On the pick-and-roll my big has to be all the way up and I'm going to red that, which means I'm going to double-team it every time so Goulding swings the ball.

But when you don't, when your big stands back and Goulding comes off that screen, he can shoot it from anywhere, that's where he gets hot. If you looked at the Perth game, Keanu Pinder stood back because he was more worried about his man and Goulding came off and knocked those threes down.

Once you get up and your man rolls, it's not your responsibility anymore. It's that third guy to step in and rotate and help you out like you helped your guard out. So, I just think if Illawarra can run Chris Goulding and Ian Clark off the three-point line, they give themselves a much better chance of winning because there's not a lot of scoring coming from everybody else.

Illawarra's biggest advantage - their bench. I've said it all along, they have the best bench in the league and that's going to play a huge role.

It’s going to be a series for the ages but I think Melbourne gets it done in five.