Perth Wildcats coach Rob Beveridge wants his team to re-establish their style of play on Sunday at Challenge Stadium against the Sydney Kings following two losses on the road and he feels that playing more aggressive and free-flowing, and rebounding strongly are the keys.
Click here to listen to Rob Beveridge speaking to the media on Friday ahead of Sunday's game
The Wildcats have won all five meetings with the Kings since they re-entered the NBL for the 2010/11 season and while Beveridge knows they are a dangerous team following a coaching change and with talented players, he's more focused on the 'Cats getting back to doing what they do best.
"We had a terrific month in January but have since played two very tough games and got beaten so it's important for us to re-establish ourselves, and redefine who we are as the Wildcats," Beveridge said.
"That's what we are challenging our players this week to do. We want to get back to playing up-tempo, being a lot more aggressive and a lot more free-flowing. It's happened and it's all about evaluating those losses now and moving on. I don't say 'Oh my god, we've lost two in-a-row or anything like that'."
Sydney will have a new coach for Sunday's game with Tim Hudson stepping up following Ian Robilliard moving into the CEO role and Beveridge hopes the Kings don't come out breathing fire as a result.
"I think it happens a lot in sport when there are changes whether it's with the players or coach, generally that next week they play exceptionally well," he said.
"We are hoping they won't, but there's no way we are going to disrespect them in any way at all. Having said that, we are more worried about ourselves than them."
As for the two losses on the road the last two weeks, Beveridge was more concerned with the performance last Friday night in Cairns and now hopes to see those things that went wrong turned around on Sunday against Sydney.
"It was very tough there's no doubt about that. When you are playing top-four teams on the road it is very tough, but I thought we did pretty well in New Zealand and pretty ordinary in Cairns," he said.
"They totally outplayed us and outclassed us in every department and that doesn’t happen very often. It's good to be back to re-establish ourselves now."
Two areas that Beveridge is definitely looking to is rebounding and coming out performing strongly straight out of half-time. In New Zealand, the Breakers went on a 17-0 run during the third quarter and then last week Cairns hit the first 14 points of the second half.
"We have spoken about it and we've had that problem for a while now. We are trying to work out what to do when we come out of half-time. Do we go with a different group, do we specifically focus on certain things offensively and defensively, and it's an area we are looking at for sure," Beveridge said.
"We have been the leading team in rebounding in the last two years and that's why we've done well because you give yourselves a chance to win every game by winning that possession battle, but we were totally outrebounded by Cairns.
"They were more determined and we've spoken to the guys and told them that it's simply not good enough to get outrebounded. That's a real focus for this week."
