All teams face a gruelling schedule as the NBL looks to make up ground lost through mass postponements that have plagued the season as the country deals with Omicron COVID outbreak.

It saw just one game played in round six, with just three games played between Boxing Day and the Hawks return to action against Sydney on Thursday night to tip-off round seven.

It followed four successive postponements of home fixtures for the Hawks, who ended a month-long layoff with a win over their arch-rivals.

They'll play their second match of the round against Melbourne United in Wollongong on Sunday.

They were due to then host South East Melbourne in Wollongong next Saturday, but now face Perth at the WEC in what will be their first outing of round eight and the first of five games in 11 days.

The Hawks will host Adelaide and the Wildcats in the space of 48 hours to tip-off round nine, followed by a three-game away stretch against Cairns, the Breakers and the Bullets.

They'll return to Wollongong against the Phoenix on February 7, with a final home clash with the Taipans rounding out fixtures on February 12 after the NBL scrapped plans to pause the season through the FIBA World Cup qualifying window.

Read more: Hawks COVID experiment pays dividends

It will be tough, but there won't be too many complaints in the Illawarra camp given the false starts they have endured, with star big man Sam Froling saying the Hawks were desperate to get back on the floor ahead of Thursday's return stoush with Sydney.

"It was lot of fun. You want to be playing this whole time when you're here and it sucks to be off the court for so long," Froling said.

On a quiet night for marquee man Duop Reath, Froling produced one of the finest performances of his career against the Kings, finishing with a career-high 27 points in the victory.

"When you've got shooters like Tyler (Harvey) JJ (Justinian Jessup) and Duop out there and you've got AC (Antonius Cleveland) scoring, you can't come off any of those guys," Froling said.

"It leaves me open a lot and I had a lot of time to shoot the outside ones. I've been working on that a lot recently and it was nice to see a few go in.

"They can't play off all our guys and it gives me so much time and space to get my feet set and get under my shot.

"Those guys got doubled a lot and that gives me opportunity to offensive rebound and put those back in. Having those guys around me definitely makes life easier."

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