Illawarra ready to punch finals ticket on pivotal road trip

Two long flights and a ticket to the NBL Finals waiting at the end of it.

That's the plan.

The Hawks weekend will be spent mostly in the air, as we prepare to play the Wildcats in Perth and then finish the regular season with another game against Sydney.

It's always a tough trip, simply for the time spent travelling and the time difference in Western Australia, but something most of us have had experience with before.

They're big games obviously, so I just try and switch off as much as possible and read a book, spend plenty of time drinking water and walking up and down the aisle to keep the legs moving.

As much as we lost the series last year, beating Perth over there in game one gave us belief we can do it.

We'll stay there Friday night after the Perth game and then fly back early Saturday morning, landing in Sydney at 5pm.

From there, we'll have dinner as a team, do some video review for the Kings and maybe take a walk to try and stay as fresh as possible for Sunday's game.

The percentages are in our favour in terms of making the top four, but we're taking the attitude of going out there and winning these games to finish as high as we can.

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To be honest, this is a perfect preparation for the playoffs, because Perth and Sydney are both fighting for their title shot as well, this is what it's all about.

The loss to Sydney last week was disappointing, if you said we had a shot to win it and then overtime, I'd back this team to do it every time.

We looked back and thought there were a few defensive moments we let ourselves down in the Kings game, but we've proven what we're capable of with the run of wins to put us in the top four.

There's more to come and the feeling of losing that one will drive us in the big moments.

The bench unit is ready to go to help lift our starters this weekend, it's going to be really important to have everyone healthy for the challenges ahead.

We're looking forward to the chance to bring playoffs basketball back to Wollongong next week.