That's the case for us this week heading into another game with the Bullets. It's the fifth time we've come up against them and, in a regular season, that's pretty unique in itself.

They're obviously doing it a bit tough at the moment with some injuries, as we are, and it's just a reminder of how demanding this season's been for all teams.

Look across the league and there's barely a single team that hasn't dealt with guys being sidelined or is playing at full strength. It seems like every team in the league right now has one or two guys out.

You need a lot of luck to go through a whole season without injuries but, with this season being longer and different so many ways, it was never going to be a reality for anyone.

Even looking at other sports through this COVID year, there's more injuries than previous years because preparations have been so drastically thrown out and even experienced players, coaches and staff are dealing with things they haven't before.

Wen started the year without Cam Bairstow and Deng Adel, but the group we had were relatively lucky in avoiding people getting hurt and building some momentum.

We were rolling other teams that were probably few people down. Now we've been struck with that with Tyler and Cam going down the last couple of games. It's bit like a merry-go-round and it's just our turn at the moment.

You're always going to struggle with two key cogs missing, but you can still win games, you just can't afford to take shortcuts. Those one per-centers and non-negotiables become even more important.

You certainly can't afford to start flat and lacking in energy like we did against Adelaide. It doesn't matter who we have on the floor, we didn't play at anywhere near the level in those areas that we've come to expect from ourselves.

We need to improve, but it's something of a hallmark for our group this year. There's been a couple of times it looked like the wheels might come off, but we've always responded. With purpose.

Having Tyler back in the line-up will be great but, going forward, we're all going to need to lift. We can't expect him to pick us straight back up. No matter what happens, who comes in and out, no season gets easier as it goes along.

Brisbane are hurting at the moment but they're hanging around that fourth-fifth spot and they're going to be just as desperate as we are for a win.

It's even more important given our schedule. We play South East, who've been a bogey team for us this year, on Friday and then Cairns on Sunday so we haven't got a lot of time between games to prepare.

Having a stretch of three games at home in five days is a first for me, and probably for any of us, but we've made good use of opportunities to build momentum so far this year. We won't get a much better chance to do it than we will this week.

We're really excited to get in front of that home crowd at the WEC and hopefully it can be the springboard for our run at the finals.

We can't have teams coming in here and beating us on our home court because we know going anywhere else and winning is tough.

We need to make our home court a formidable place to play and that starts now.