Never too high, never too low. It's been a mantra for Illawarra star Justin Robinson, but the gun import admits it's something he drifted away from on the comeback trail from a season-ending knee injury.
With his experience and pedigree, most believe the 26-year-old can be the league's best point-guard at his best, but it would be foolish to think he'd be so from the tip having missed all but one game in his first NBL season.
It's a trap he admittedly fell into himself, in particular following a tough 1-15 shooting night against Adelaide in round two. In reality it was a mere blip in a season that has him averaging 13 points, five assists and three rebounds.
He was just short of a double-double with 20 points and nine assists in last week's loss to Melbourne United, but the Virginia native says mental wrestle with fluctuating performances over the opening month surprised him more than any physical challenges on the comeback trail.
"I think that goes back to the never too high, never too low [mentality]," Robinson said.
"After the South East game going into Tassie and Adelaide, I went away from that and I got too down on myself after the Adelaide game, the worst game I've played ever.
"That's kind of tricky. It wasn't something I was ever thinking about in terms of mentally [approaching it]. I hadn't played a game in a year, so a bad game was going to come, but I went to a bad mental box with that I feel like I let my team down.
"I knew it was going to come, it's just how I responded to it that I wasn't very pleased with as far as my internal feel. It's game seven for me in the last year and, I'm not making any excuses, but I think the whole idea of being the point-guard is learning that balance.
"It's who I've been my whole life, feeling out if my team needs me to score, defend or pass or just be a vocal leader. That's kind of the tricky part that I'm trying to learn right now, still trying to get back in the flow of things."
It's a challenge the Hawks face on the team front, with small lapses costing them victory in all but one blow-out defeat at the hands of Tasmania in game three of the season.
The trend continued last week against United, with the Hawks producing arguably the best quarter of Jacob Jackomas' tenure to open the game only to hit the skids late in a 25-15 fourth quarter.
The defeat saw the Hawks fall to 2-5 on the season, but Robinson insists his team's moving in the right direction.
"Obviously it's a tough loss. We could've had it, we should've had it," Robinson said.
"There was another spurt in the game where we let a team take advantage of us and go on a run that we didn't handle the right way. I think that's how we're going to get better, handling ups and downs, whether we're going to run or someone else is going on a run.
"We've had a lot of spurts throughout the season, I think the first quarter of the day was the best one we've had. It definitely shows what we can do and who we can be, I think it's just the role definition at that point. We want to do well for each other, so sometimes we put a little bit too much pressure on ourselves.
"We're making progress, we probably look like a whole different team than other games and we're continuing to get better day by day. It's a new group, we're learning guys still and I think we're taking the positive steps. That's the great thing about the group that we have. We're not getting too down, we know what we can be and we know it's early on in the year. It'll play out the way it's supposed to."
"Obviously we want to protect home court and win more at home," Robinson said.
"We've given two away at home already. It's hard to win in this league, it's hard to win on the road and it's hard to win at home too so it's kind of a bash. It gives me back that college feel, every possession counts, it's a 40-minute game, it's not 48 like back home in the NBA and it's a big strategy game.
"One possession at the beginning of the game can hurt you at the end because the games are so close, there's not many blowouts. That's what I've learned here. We went to an 0-4 Adelaide team and we lose, Sydney or Cairns coming in here down somebody, it's hard to win.
"We're not overlooking anybody, we're not under-looking anybody. Sydney's talented, they're coached well, they've got good players. I think we've just got to learn from our mistakes in the first one and bounce back from that."
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Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
