The South East Melbourne Phoenix might have gone 38/151 from three-point range so far this season, but it's at the defensive end that coach Josh King wants to see the real growth from his team.

The Phoenix might have had a reputation as being a strong defensive team last season when they pushed the Adelaide 36ers to three games in the Playoffs. The numbers didn’t necessarily back that up and a lot of that was because of the pace they played at.

King expects this team to be better defensively in NBL27 and while there's signs of that so far after four games, there's plenty of improvement left.

"I don't think we had a bad defensive performance in this game, but I would say that we weren’t very good on defence last year," King said after Friday night's loss in Perth.

"We outscored a lot of teams and we wanna be a defensive team than we were last year and the numbers so far will probably tell you that we are, but we're not shooting the ball like we were last year.

"You have to really scrape back the fat to see what the real problem is."

There are three characteristics generally of teams coached by King – they will shoot a lot of threes, they will push the pace and get up and in defensively.

They played at the fastest pace of any team in NBL26 and while they had the Defensive Player of the Year, John Brown III, they gave up the fifth most points a game while being the highest scorers, and the most prolific three-point shooting team.

Despite the significant personnel change in NBL27, King doesn’t want a lot of those characteristics to change.

The Phoenix have only conceded 88.3 points a game down from the 92.3 last season, but following Friday night's loss in Perth to the Wildcats to see them slip to 1-3, that's the end his focus was on.

"If we're not making our shots, you need to get stops and you have to dig down and be a little bit tougher defensively to get that big stop," King said.

"I'm super, super, super confident in that group, there's no finger pointing, there's no blame game, and we have a game on Sunday so we have to turn the page quickly and get ready for Illawarra.

"We have a bunch of guys who can make plays for us down the stretch offensively, but we have to be more focused on the defensive side of the ball and get stops and defensive rebounds, which we didn’t get enough of."

Following the loss to Perth in their second visit to RAC Arena in the opening three rounds of the season, King felt it was their gambling to make defensive players more so than going 12/45 from the three-point line that was pivotal in the eventual four-point defeat.

"In a game that's basically a one possession game, our guys will be really upset when they go back and look at it because you just needed a stop, or two stops, and there's things that we can control that we're not solid with right now," King said.

"Guys aren’t trying to make these mistakes, they're trying to go help their teammate and make a big play, but that's not where you win the game by gambling and reaching for steals and getting back cut, and not finishing plays.

"It takes multiple efforts on the defensive side and if we want to get out of this that's where we're going to get out of it, on the defensive side."

South East Melbourne have now just shot the three ball at 25 per cent so far this season with an average of nearly 38 attempts a game and King is comfortable for that to continue.

With a team featuring proven shooters like Jordan Hunter, Skylar Mays, Tanner Krebs, D'Shawn Schwartz, Angus Glover, Akech Aliir and Nathan Sobey throughout their careers, you can understand his faith too.

"I think we're getting good shots and I believe in the guys that are shooting them," King said.

"And again, if we're making them, it's not a game, and if we're shooting the ball like we were last year, we're 4-0 right now, we're 4-0.

"But we're not and that's OK, at some point water will find its level and right now we're a 1-3 basketball team, but we've got 29 games left so let's talk after that."

The Phoenix now have the shortest of turnarounds to fly home on Saturday and get ready to host the Illawarra Hawks in the early game on Sunday at John Cain Arena.

King is looking forward to seeing how his team responds in an attempt to avoid a fourth straight loss.

"We've got a good medical staff and sports performance staff, I don’t know that there's much I'm gonna do for them before Sunday," King said.

"You get on a flight and you go play the game on Sunday. You do a quick little video analysis on Illawarra basically about personnel and I know they had a big win tonight where they shot the ball really well.

"They'll be up and about, and hopefully we will too in John Cain. I think our guys will be excited to play a home game on Sunday and it's onto the next one, no one is going to feel sorry for us and it's not doom and gloom.

"I feel like some people are expecting me to move furniture right now, it's early days, and we just have to keep fighting and stick together."

Chris Pike

Defence, not shooting the Phoenix focus