Wollongong coach Gordie McLeod is set to reshape his starting five in an attempt to stop the Hawks from plummeting out of play-offs contention.

The Hawks (1-8) are effectively a third of the way through the 28-game season and need to win at least 12 of their final 19 matches to have any hope of qualifying for the top-four finals.

Only their staunchest fans will be tipping them to break an eight-game losing streak in Friday's clash with the New Zealand Breakers in Auckland.

McLeod knows he has to bite the bullet and try something new to jolt his team into action.

He didn't confirm or deny possible line-up alterations, but two changes on the cards are centre Larry Davidson and guard Rhys Martin starting in place of Luke Nevill and Gary Ervin.

"We're certainly looking at [possible changes]," McLeod said.

"One of the good things about basketball is that you can replicate what you do each day at practice.

"We've been changing our groups around because at some stage of certain games you're going to play with those combinations."

The Hawks have gone through a week of soul-searching after last Friday's embarrassing 29-point thrashing from Sydney.

McLeod spoke to the players for 30 minutes before their first training session this week and urged them to keep striving to improve.

"The talk was about individual and team development, because a team can only move forward if each of the individuals - coaching staff included - are doing the job to the best of their ability," he said.

"The focus has been on evaluating ourselves individually and evaluating ourselves as a group, and then have that plan to move forward.

"We have to improve week in week out, day in day out, game in game out. That's been a process we've used for a long time and that's the process that you've gotta have. If you stand still you get left behind."

McLeod said the Hawks remained positive.

"We've had a good week," he said. "We definitely made progress, but the challenge for us is to accelerate that development.

"We covered some good bases in the video room, so hopefully we can come up with a good game plan, get some good contributions through the group and be really competitive. We have to find our style, and that's a work in progress."

The Breakers beat the Hawks by two points three weeks ago in Wollongong.

"New Zealand's a quality outfit. They've probably got one of the strongest rosters in the competition," McLeod said.

"They're playing with a lot of confidence and they're probably the form team of the competition. We have to find a way to disrupt them."