Hawks use road trip to strengthen rapport

I would have preferred to have been anywhere but Cairns - we spent enough time there last year - but coming down to Tassie is nice.

The weather's really good and our motel is quite nice, and it's been nice to get out and see Tassie.

A lot of people at the airport seemed to know we were a basketball team and were asking if we were playing the JackJumpers, though obviously, we're playing New Zealand.

But it seems like there's a bit of recognition for basketball here.

Speaking of the airport, we've been playing a lot of cards while waiting for flights, and lots of talking too.

Tim Coenraad is pretty good at cards, but it usually rotates between the guys, you get on a bit of a run or lose a few in a row.

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.

Once the guys get on flights, they usually lock into their phones or read, or watch things on their iPads.

Outside of that, we're spending a lot of time with each other, so it's a good opportunity to live in each other's pockets and get to know each other better and form those bonds that we'll need at the back end of the season.

While we're trying to relax, we're focused on the Breakers game.

I think anytime you play a team that's not only coming off a bad loss, but they also didn't play particularly well, you're wary.

New Zealand is a proud team so we know they're going to come out with a lot of fight.

We definitely can't underestimate them. Finn Delany and Hugo Besson are their main guys that we'll be focusing on.

Obviously, Yannick Wetzell's also been really good for them and he played well against us last time, so we need to do a job on him if we want to succeed.

The guys are feeling good after Saturday night's win.

For me, it was the way we played.

We really stuck it to them in the fourth quarter and put our foot on their threats, and ran away with it a bit - which we haven't done as well this season.

We've started games well but haven't executed down the back end, so to come out and play that well over the four quarters puts a lot of confidence in the team, and should stand us in good stead.

But we know that we're going to get pretty much everyone's get shot this year, just with the way the league is. So we're preparing the best we can and play a style of basketball we want, and hopefully come away with another road win.