Sixers confident of rediscovering form, hopeful Humphries plays

Adelaide 36ers Head Coach Mike Wells is optimistic Isaac Humphries will be fit to feature on Thursday night against Illawarra.

Humphries played 16 minutes and sat out the entire last quarter of the weekend’s loss to South East Melbourne, with Wells explaining after the game that the 28-year-old was managing knee soreness.

But after training on Tuesday, the coach said the club was doing it could to ensure his starting big man would play this week.

“He needed a couple of days,” Wells said.

“I would say the games and the minutes and the travel probably just wore on him.

“He's had a hell of a season. (I’m) super proud of him and what he's accomplished and how he's helped us on both ends.

“He needed a little bit of rest in that game. He wasn't quite sure where he was, so I made it easy for him. I shut him down.

“Hopefully, he'll be healed up and ready to go, but we'll see how he responds.

 “We're doing everything we can.”

The Sixers will be hoping Humphries will team up with the returning Nick Rakocevic, who has served a one-game suspension, when they get to Wollongong to face the reigning NBL Champions.

Wells’ side’s recent run of form includes four wins and four losses since the turn of the new year, and he admits “nobody in the organisation is happy with the January results”.

And he is confident if it rediscovers a few key parts of its game, the side will be hard to beat again.

“I don't want to make any excuses,” he said when asked the reason behind the recent form slump.

“There's probably multiple different things, but as a coach… it's got to be the defensive end. You've got to recommit to the defensive end.

 “And that's been our focus on the defensive end because you got to get up.

“We started off slow on defence (this season). We really creeped up in there, (third ranked) to almost (second) and rebounding, right?

“And when we do those things, we're a pretty good team.

 “We played good teams in January, maybe the travel, all those things.

 “I can't judge all that, but I know that when we defend and when we rebound, we're really, really, good.”

The Sixers are still top of the ladder with a 21-8 overall record and Wells is buoyed by the opportunity of the side controlling its own destiny in the run-in to finals.

“I think everybody would say if it's February first, and you’ve got four games to go and you're in first place, we'd take that,” he explained.

“The journey has been quite a run. I'm super proud of what this group's accomplished, and the support internally has been great.

“I'm excited about the last four games and potentially what we can achieve to end this year.”

The Sixers will travel on Wednesday ahead of Thursday night’s meeting with the Hawks.

That game gets underway from 7:00pm ACDT.