Sixers locked in on Hawks despite heavy schedule

The Adelaide 36ers are focussed only on their next game, despite a run of three games in six days.

The Sixers will travel to Wollongong to take on the 0-3 Illawarra on Friday night before returning home to host New Zealand, less than 48 hours, finishing the sequence with a Wednesday night Ignite Cup game against Melbourne United.

Despite the tight turnarounds and tricky schedule, Head Coach Trevor Gleeson isn’t looking further than the Hawks clash.

“We're just locked into this game,” he said, discussing facing the winless Hawks on their home court.

“That's the assistant coaches, that’s their job to plan in advance and get ready, but the team, we're just focussed on tomorrow night.

“We know it's (Illawarra’s) first home game so they're going to come out pretty much fired (up).

“They haven't had a great start to the season, so we know they're going to come out with a bit of pepper in the steps, so we've got to be ready for that.”

After playing and losing late in Perth last week, Gleeson was disappointed with his side’s showing, critical of the group going away from team values and behaviours.

The Sixers turned up on Sunday with a much better mindset, particularly defensively, in a relatively comfortable home win over Cairns to take their overall record to 2-1 after the opening week.

“It was good how we responded,” Gleeson explained to Adelaide media before boarding the team flight.

“I don't like losing the game we should have won, should have put away, but yeah, it's good to know the character of the team.

“We're still three games in, you know, 10% of the season, so we've got 90% of the season to go and it's how you grow as a team, how you develop, how you handle adversity.

“Sometimes it breaks teams, sometimes it builds team stronger and we certainly want to be there.”

Gleeson’s side has had to deal with some adversity already, particularly the absences of key players to injury – most recently Flynn Cameron and Isaac Humphries.

Humphries’ knee injury has meant he has not played at all this season, and his coach is still waiting for medical advice about when he might be able to return to the court.

In Humphries’ absence, American-Serbian Nick Rakocevic has stood up. He leads the league for rebounds, averaging 9.7 per game, while also averaging 18.3 points per game.

Gleeson said the side needed Rakocevic, who was building consistency and playing a vital role in the front court.

“We don't need him to be (doing) crazy stuff out there,” the five-time NBL Championship winner said.

“We need him. And he's been good for us, and same thing, can he stay consistent? That's the key. So it's a good challenge for him.

“Our offence, we share the ball a lot more. I think last year’s they had a great success, what they were doing, but my philosophy is keep sharing the ball.

“I think Nick might be a little bit used to that overseas playing in Europe and that's when you get plenty of touches, you feel involved, you feel a part of the game, and he's been really good for us.”

The Sixers play the Hawks at the WIN Entertainment Centre from 7:00pm ACST with live coverage on ESPN via Kayo Sports or Disney+.