The American, who injured her knee in last weekend’s overtime loss to the Lightning in Adelaide, has responded well to treatment and is considered a better than even chance to be passed fit to play.

A still cautious Spirit coach Simon Pritchard said Laney’s availability would hinge on a fitness test on Friday afternoon.

“It is much more likely that she is going to play now than it was Tuesday,” he said.

“Her knee is responding quickly. The physio has got her in the pool and she is doing a 30-minute session in there each day.

“But she still has to be able to jump and land and hop one leg.

“Where I was zero-100 on Tuesday, zero being she was not going to play, I would say she is now at 60-40.

“In the end the physio might say ‘you have just a little too much pain, we’ll leave you out’, but she’ll definitely be in the following week, or they might say ‘you can play and we’ll keep you to 15-20 minutes.’”

It went without saying that Pritchard would be content for 15-20 minutes of court-time from Laney, compared to the seven minutes she played before going down with injury against the Lightning.

The 23-year-old American aside, the Spirit will enter their second home game for the season with a clean bill of health.

Training this week has included a pair of educational sessions, one led by Bendigo-based referee Tayla Flint on rule changes, the other by Bendigo Braves coach Ben Harvey covering tactics ad strategy.

The Braves’ 2016 national championship coach has again spent time recently with the NBL’s Illawarra Hawks, under coach Rob Beveridge, with some of what he learned to be incorporated into Friday night’s game plan.

Pritchard said the Spirit, who have started the 2017-18 season at 1-4, would enter the clash with real confidence.

“I thought we were right in the game in Adelaide and I really think we can n match up well on them,” he said.

“We are scoring well, and we defended well in that game.

“I know if we can defend the way we know we can, we’ll have no problems.

“I don’t think we’ll get ourselves down like we did in Adelaide – at one point we were down by 17.

“The girls are much more switched on and we think we have a solution to that.

“But I still think it will be a ‘nip and tuck’ game in the fourth quarter.”

The Spirit start week four with two of the league’s top eight scorers in captain Kelsey Griffin (19.5ppg) and Nadeen Payne (16ppg).

The Lightning, who defeated the Canberra Capitals last night to advance to 4-1, have Abby Bishop in top form, averaging 20.2ppg and 8.2rpg.

Tip-off at Bendigo Stadium on Friday night is 7pm.