No excuses for 36ers' slump

Adelaide coach Mike Wells has backed his team to bounce back, despite its sixth loss in the last seven games against Brisbane in Tuesday night.

The 36ers were in the championship mix barely a month ago, with a 6-4 record, but have since plummeted in the standings, with injuries and suspension wreaking havoc on their player availability.

While Kendric Davis and Montrezl Harrell are now back and firing, Adelaide is still waiting on the returns of DJ Vasiljevic and Sunday Dech, sidelined with hamstring injuries.

Even at full strength, making Finals now seems an uphill battle for the 36ers, with a 7-9 record and sitting down in eighth place. 

“How you handle adversity is a big testament in life,” Wells said after the 21-point defeat to the Bullets. 

“You’ve got to get through the hard times to get to the good times ... right now it happens to be a hard time for us. 

“It’s been a hard time for us for a while.

“We’ve had to have different lineups, different guys starting, moving some things around ... we had some stability early in the year, playing guys major minutes, and we’ve had to go in different directions for a lot of different reasons.”

Wells said the 36ers were still working things out on the defensive end, with Dech’s absence a tough blow across the last fortnight.

But he said any thought of a quick form reversal based purely on players returning was simply not realistic.

“There’d be a different presence out there and it would be nice to have the full group together for the first time in five or six weeks,” he said. “But will that be the answer in itself? Absolutely not.

“That will take us getting down, actually doing some work and starting on the defensive end and figuring out exactly what this group can do to defend and disrupt.” 

Wells credited his players’ resilience and effort to turn things around. 

“I want to give the guys credit for trying,” Wells said. 

“They’re working hard, the results are not there yet, and that’s also what happens with some young guys on the perimeters. 

“It’s not like there’s a quit ... it’s just that it’s not as connected and detailed and physical as we need it to be yet.”

Wells dismissed any thoughts of the the 36ers feeling “down” about their current plight. 

“We get to play basketball for a living. I don’t think there would be anything to ever be down with in this business. This is the greatest job in the world, these guys have the greatest life in the world,“ Wells added.  

“We didn’t play well, we’ve got to play better. We get another chance to go against Bryce Cotton and we’ve got another home game ... if somebody’s down, it can be because of the loss today, but in 45 minutes, that thing should be gone and we should be thinking about what we need to do next, because we get to play basketball.”

Asked how he’ll spending his Christmas in Adelaide, Wells' response was short and sweet. 

“Watching Perth,” he said. 

Adelaide hosts the Wildcats on Saturday night at 8pm AEDT, live on ESPN, looking to bounce back from a 10-point loss in the teams' last matchup.