Illawarra coach Brian Goorjian has called on his players to "dig deep" as the Hawks look to snap a two-game losing streak against the 36ers on Monday night.
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After falling by four points last week to Melbourne United, the Hawks slumped to consecutive losses for the first time this campaign on Saturday with a 94-78 defeat to Perth in Wollongong.
The Hawks led by 10 points at quarter time, only to trail by the same margin midway through the third quarter. They got within one point with six minutes remaining, before the Wildcats finished off in style with a 24-9 run.
The result has left Goorjian searching for answers, and he will need to find them quickly, with the Hawks to take on Perth again on Thursday night following the 36ers clash on Monday.
"We were not even close. As an organisation and as a team, have we gone with the competition after what we did last year? It's been a weakness here for as long as I can remember. I thought last game was huge and the Delly (Matthew Dellavedova scoring 33 points for United) thing kind of put a marker on it. That one I kind of put on me, on how we guarded him, but I still thought we had an opportunity if we were where we needed to be to win that at home," Goorjian said.
"And then on Saturday night, I thought the table was set. So why has this team (Wildcats) for 32 years in a row made finals? They lose in Adelaide, but they don't lose this game - it's just who they are. And we got that on Saturday night, and that was laid out to everybody. We really fell short.
"We're now starting to play for our season. You can't dump two at home, and there's pressure on us to make the top four. We've just got to dig deep now and get these wins as we go through our process."
The back-to-back defeats have left the Hawks vulnerable in their pursuit of consecutive finals appearances, with the likes of Cairns and Brisbane applying pressure.
After conceding just over 82 points per game last season - the second least amount on average that campaign - the Hawks have had their issues at the defensive end of the floor in 2021/22.
Illawarra are conceding more than 88 points per game this season.
"I thought defensively, it was really bad [against Perth]. If we get anywhere near 80, we should be in the game with a chance. I thought we played beautifully in the first quarter and were mostly really nice offensively in the second quarter. And then when we fell behind in transition and off motion, I thought we took bad shots. And that's been an issue for us. But if we scored this much last year, we win," Goorjian said.
"This year, I would say we're right there, or we might be the worst defensive team in the competition right now. We're giving up too much per game, but even on our home court, we're just not getting it done on the defensive end of the floor.
''We didn't shoot the ball well from the three-point line, even with our shooters, and we still scored 78 or so points. It was all geared off the defence, and that's what we were last year. To win these last two, we needed to get stops and we didn't.
"I like what's going on day to day, how we're going about practice. But the last two games, when there's been pressure on and we've been under the hammer, where we've gone has just been disappointing. We've got some work to do."
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