Sixers 'smack in the face' a reality check

Not maintaining their improved defence to fuel their offence is where Mike Wells feels the Adelaide 36ers let themselves down in a tough home loss on Friday night, that now puts pressure on two massive road games to finish NBL25.

There really was no sign that Adelaide weren’t going to keep their momentum going especially against a Brisbane Bullets team ravaged by injury, lacking size and having lost five of their past six games.

The Sixers were playing their best basketball of the season having won three straight and six of the last eight since turning things around in Sydney back on December 30.

If the 36ers kept on winning, they would lock in a top six spot, but could finish higher than sixth to either earn a home Play-In Game or a double chance in the Play-In Tournament.

However, the Sixers never appeared to have the same energy they had displayed over the previous eight games.

The Bullets took full advantage to win 92-89 and leave Adelaide in sixth spot at 13-14 with road games to finish against the South East Melbourne Phoenix and Perth Wildcats.

"It has been a really good month and our group has done a lot of really good things, but to me this is probably just another step in our development as a group and any time that I think it might get a little bit easier, it kinda jumps up and smacks us in the face to put us back to reality," Wells said.

"Whatever this is it will get our attention again and it's just the road that the 36ers have had to go this year to get to the playoffs. This one really bothers me and doesn’t sit well with anybody in there, and we need to get our momentum back."

Playing at home where all 14 games have been sold out at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre in NBL25, has been a great strength of the 36ers where they had won nine of 13 games before Friday night.

Across those nine home wins, they had been averaging 94.1 points and more importantly only conceding 84.8 points, but against the Bullets they didn’t live up to the same effort they'd been giving.

That's what concerned Wells the most afterwards because he knows their home fans deserved better especially if it happens to be the last time they see their team play this season.

"You want to put on a good show for these fans. They've been unbelievably supportive this year with 14 sellouts and you want to come in and play well, and get a win," Wells said.

"It feels bad, really bad to have that be the last regular season home game and to not close out a really, really good stretch and home season where we've played so well here and have really dominated a lot.

"A big part in that is our fans and the way they get us going, and the way we can play to them so to kind of leave it out there like that, that feels bad right."

The 36ers were giving up 104.3 points in eight straight matches before everything turned around with the uplifting win in Sydney.

Since then, the Sixers had only been conceding 91 points over eight matches which included six wins and two close road losses to Tasmania and Perth, so the defence not being at that level was Wells' biggest area of concern.

"For me it's the defensive end and that's been the biggest difference for us in this stretch since that first game in Sydney," Wells said.

"Our defensive energy and focus has been the biggest difference with our pick up points, communication and unfortunately we never got a chance to set our defence and impact our offence where we could run back and be playing in seams in this game.

"That's where Kendric excels and where we have Ice running with a clean corner behind him, and Trez in the post.

"That's where we function at a very high level and part of that is by running back at guys with the ball going side to side, but to me it's defensively where we needed to focus and that's the whole game."

Defensively in the first half of the season was a struggle for the 36ers and so was playing on the road where they lost seven of eight outside of Adelaide before it all changed in Sydney.

Given the Sixers have now won twice in Sydney including winning in Cairns and even putting in a good showing in Perth, Wells has no doubt his team can perform well in the last two games, firstly in Melbourne on Sunday against the Phoenix, and then next Friday away to the Wildcats.

"We're a different team than we've been all year and our guys have proven that we can win anywhere on the road," Wells said.

"We're different than the first two-thirds of the year so I think there's a confident now going on the road so I don't think that's a big issue.

"We've got to come together and we do have a hell of a challenge in front of us to get to the goals we've talked about reaching.

"It's all right there in front of us and we can set the tempo and control a lot of things that we can do, and do well which is the next challenge to be ready on Sunday at 4 o'clock to try and win another road game."