Far from the Christmas spirit of giving, Hawks shooting guard Tyson Demos is determined to ensure Wollongong's miserly defence denies Melbourne a big-scoring night next Friday.

Travelling to Victoria on Boxing Day, Demos said the Hawks vowed to continue drying up their opponents' points in the first leg of a four-day double-header against the Tigers.

The Hawks managed to keep the usually free-scoring Kings to scores of just 69 and 63, which Demos attributes to a change in attitude in key defensive areas.

"Over the last three years the things that really hurt us have been our defence and our rebounding," Demos said.

"From the start of the season that's something that we wanted to improve on and week by week we've been improving.

"Ozzy [Oscar Foreman] has done a really good job rebounding this year and he's helped us big time on the defensive end which isn't usually his strong point.

"He's stepped it up this year and showing in the wins we've been getting."

Demos enjoyed some waves at North Wollongong yesterday with star ironman Josh Minogue and said consecutive upset victories over their arch rivals had made this week's brief Christmas sabbatical far more enjoyable.

"It's always good to beat the Kings but to beat them twice in a row has definitely topped off the Christmas break," Demos said.

"It would have been a lot harder going into the break with two losses.

"It's going to be good now to freshen up the bodies and the mind and after the break we should be right to get back into the rest of the season and try and get into that top-four spot."

The Hawks stormed back into top-four contention on the back of three victories in their last four games but Demos said coach Gordie McLeod hadn't allowed the squad to get carried away.

"Having those two wins definitely gives us the confidence to carry on with for the rest of the season but Gordie is the sort of coach that never lets us get too high in confidence or too low," Demos said.

"We're looking forward to getting back in the grind again and everyone's going to be pretty pumped to play Melbourne."

The Hawks' form reversal may have surprised some observers but Demos denied the Hawks had suddenly stumbled on a magic formula.

"From the start of the season we weren't too far off the mark," Demos said.

"We were losing a few close games but now we're winning the close games and we've jut go to carry that on.

"As we've gone along Rotnei [Clarke] and Kevin [Tiggs] have been figuring out the offence and that's helped us week by week.

"We're not relying on one or two people to score we can have any person on any night stepping up and making shots.

"That's the good thing about our team and it makes it a lot harder defensively for the opposition."