The Hawks went down 83-77 to the Kings in Wollongong on Sunday, less than 48 hours after being out-run 99-81 against a red-hot Adelaide outfit in Tuggeranong.

A drastically under-strength Hawks also went down to visiting St Mary’s College at the Snakepit last month, but Beveridge said he took plenty positives out of Sunday’s hit-out.

“It’s one of those things where people look at the scoreboard and say ‘oh no we’ve lost two in a row’ but I was pretty happy with it,” Beveridge said.

“I thought we were really poor against Adelaide, they out-hustled us and out-worked us, all those characteristics we try to define ourselves on.

“I thought, just in one game, 36 hours, we turned it around where we competed hard. We still haven’t got our full team together, it is what it is, but I look at the progression and improvement we’re making.

“It’s like an exam, we had the test and against Adelaide we were at 50 per cent, that’s probably the mark I’d give them. [on Sunday] I’d give us 58-60.” 

Illawarra led 45-41 at halftime but were out-scored 31-15 in the third quarter after Beveridge sat star big-man AJ Ogilvy as he nurses a minor knee complaint that kept him to just under 11 minutes on the floor.

With Todd Blanchfield currently away on Boomers duty, Beveridge was also wary of overloading veteran big David Andersen with still nine games to play before the season officially tips off. 

“We fell in some holes at times and once I made the decision not to play AJ,” Beveridge said.

“It messed with our rotations because we’re trying to tag-team Andersen and AJ [at centre] but that didn’t happen because I can’t overplay Dave too soon.

“We’ve got three more games this week so a lot of the stuff that I’m doing is based on where we’re at from a training load perspective.

“We’re lifting heavy, we’re doing a lot of work so I have to be careful how many minutes we play certain guys. On the other side of it, I need to play certain guys more minutes for conditioning reasons.

“I’ve got to get some legs under Cedric [Jackson]. He struggled with fatigue a bit [against Sydney] but once he gets some legs underneath him we know how good a player he is.”

The Hawks will begin their NBL Blitz tilt against Brisbane in Bendigo on Thursday and will back up against the Breakers on Saturday and Melbourne on Sunday.

They’ll face Brisbane again on Sunshine Coast on Sunday week and Beveridge is confident his new-look group can click into gear ahead of season tip-off in Wollongong on October 12.

“We’ve got 11 preseason games and that was number two,” he said.

“We’ve got another nine games ahead of us over the next month leading in so I expect the team chemistry will improve really, really quickly.

“There’s a long way to go, there’s not doubt about that. We’re finding our way as a new group and I’m finding my way coaching a new group as well.

“I’ve seen it from game one to game two in 36 hours. We’ve ticked the boxes of what I wanted to do despite losing [Sunday’s] game.”