It comes on the back of Saturday’s win over Sydney that again resuscitated their playoffs push, a week after it seemingly bottomed out against Brisbane.

They produced a similar turnaround in round 10, offering up a dismal effort against the Breakers in New Zealand only to shock league-leaders Perth in Wollongong 48 hours later.

Their effort against the Kings arguably topped that, but an insightful Coenraad put the bounce back in context post-match.

“One of the things we’ve been struggling with is that, as professionals, that’s what we have to bring every night.” he said. “You can’t say ‘oh we had a bad game let’s use it as motivation’. That’s not how championships are won. We need to find motivation, not from external factors, within ourselves.  

“Bevo does a great job every week of coming in after losses and really asking questions of us. We’ve got to limit him doing that so often because we need to bring it ourselves.

“If we’re serious about making the four we need to find whatever that motivation is to put on a performance like that. As pros, it’s up to us to find that.”

The win over Sydney means the Hawks have beaten every team in the league, including the top four sides.

It’s a reminder of what’s possible, but Coenraad said his side need to find that elusive consistency to feature in the post-season. 

“When we play our style of basketball we can beat any team in the league and I think we proved that [on Saturday],” he said.

“It’s frustrating for me, and probably more frustrating for Bevo, to see what we can do and then go away from it like we did against Brisbane. We’ve got to find a way to bring that intensity every night. It can’t be ‘we can’t lose this game’ it has to be ‘we need to win this game’.

As it stands, the Hawks remain well in the hunt for a playoff spot, though they’ll need to win seven of their remaining 10 games to get there.

It starts with Thursday’s clash with Adelaide at The Sandpit, the first of a series of must-win games, and Coenraad said his side can’t afford to burn any more chances.

“Right now we’re so close to the top four,” Coenraad said. 

“The way things are going, a few results our way and we could be in the top four after Adelaide. We’ve got to be able to take advantage of this.

“One thing I’ve learned over my time is that game one through to game 20 are important. You can’t wait and make your run late.

“Every season I’ve had we’ve had that one game where you think ‘if we had that one back we’d have made the four’. 

“I’ve had a couple of seasons like that. You’ve got show up every game.”

Thursday

ILLAWARRA HAWKS v ADELAIDE 36ERS

WIN Entertainment Centre (7.50pm)