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BENDIGO Bank Spirit star Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe believes this weekend's WNBL road double against Townsville and Canberra are the team's biggest games so far this season.
The Spirit head into Friday night's encounter in Townsville on the back of consecutive losses to Perth and Sydney Uni.
After occupying second spot on the league ladder at the Christmas break, the Spirit (10-7) have slipped to fourth, with the margin between themselves, Townsville (10-8) and Canberra (9-8) narrowing considerably in recent weeks.
The Spirit remain level on wins with third-placed Perth (10-6), but having played one extra game.
Raincock-Ekunwe said there was no downplaying the importance of this weekend's games.
"It's the most important weekend of our season (to date) - we don't like where we are at right now," she said.
"Mental lapses have hurt. We haven't started our last two games well and those bad starts have killed us.
"We're tied with Townsville for fourth, so getting a win in at least one of these games is crucial.
"We play both teams again in the future, but we would like to come out of the weekend with two wins."
The Canadian Olympian lavished praised on teammate Gabe Richards, who plays her 250th WNBL in Townsville.
"Gabe just has the highest basketball IQ of any player that I have been on a team with and she just knows this game so well," she said.
"She's a smart, smart player.
"She can still steal, she has great hands, she can finish at the rim, she's still got it."
With their finals hopes in the balance, Richards' milestone won't be the only extra motivation driving the Spirit this weekend.
Raincock-Ekunwe said the playing group were keen to score a win or two for their injured teammate Kerryn Harrington, who will miss virtually her third straight game with a hip injury.
"She would really loved to have played with us this weekend, but she's out," she said.
"I think she's very frustrated she can't be with us, so let's get a win for her."
Meanwhile, Spirit officials are continuing to investigate the cause of a system malfunction which shut down Bendigo Satdium's new scoreboard during last Friday night's game against the Flames.
The outage caused a delay of about 15 minutes early in the third quarter and second shorter delay late in the quarter.
General manager Adam Tarr said the Spirt were working with audio-visual and data specialists Interact Us, which installed the system, in a bid to isolate the problem.
The Spirit's December 4 clash against Dandenong was similarly plagued by technical issues.
"Normally it's been just a quick reconnection, but this time it didn't and we lost our connection to the keyboard, so we couldn't input any scores," he said.
"We'll colntinue to work with the stadium and the service providers to hopefully rectify the situation and hopefully it doesn't happen again.
"This was the first time we have had to shut the whoile scoreboard system down and use the old scoreboard.
"When there's a problem there doesn't seem to be a relationship between the scoreboard and the game clock above the shot clock."
