Fresh from their first win of the Women's National Basketball League season, the Bendigo Spirit have been given a further boost ahead of a trip to Adelaide.
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Skipper Kelsey Griffin will play against Adelaide after missing the win over the Sydney Flames.
Griffin continues to manage a hamstring complaint which caused her to miss the first three games of the season.
"Kelsey is good to go, she'll be playing,'' Spirit coach Kennedy Kereama said.
"She trained well this week and she probably could have played last week.
"It was precautionary more than anything because we have to be smart about her recovery and how we navigate that space.
"Those are the challenges that are in our hands to give her the best chance to get up for every game."
Kereama said the 16-point breakthrough victory over the Sydney Flames hadn't changed the Spirit's mindset.
"It was a sense of relief in a small way,'' Kereama said.
"We've trained consistently this week, very much in the same way we have every other week.
"The mood has been still very focused and very deliberate with an expected level of intensity.
"Everyone is probably a little more relaxed because if you cop a string of losses consecutively, and then you cop another one, you start to doubt yourself.
"I'm really proud of the group for the way they continue to back themself and train hard."
A crucial aspect of the Spirit's first-up win was the scoring off the bench of Alicia Froling and Casey Samuels.
"That's the strength of this group. Everyone is prepared to be a role player, but everyone is prepared to be a star when they need to,'' Kereama said.
"Everyone did a great job last week of ensuring we put our team-mates in great positions and those players rewarded their team-mates by taking those opportunities at crucial times.
"It takes a high level of skill and experience to take a back seat while someone else is having their purple patch in a game.
"The better we can get at that the harder we are going to be to match-up on."
Saturday night's opponent Adelaide has a 2-4 record after it went down by six points to reigning premier Townsville on Wednesday night.
"They're playing good basketball, they're playing confidently and they're playing with great pace,'' Kereama said of Adelaide.
"I give them a lot of credit for the way they defended against Townsville. They made it very difficult for them.
"Every team is capable of beating every team. As coach, I back my team into win, but this certainly won't be an easy game.
"It's going to be a grind, but that's a challenge we welcome."
The Adelaide game starts a five-game spread before Christmas that will define the Spirit's play-off hopes.
They play Adelaide (away), Southside (away), Adelaide (home), Southside (home) and Sydney (away).
A 4-1 or 5-0 split will put the Spirit on course for a top-four berth.
"Our next five games are really critical,'' Kereama said.
"We play three teams in those five games and we finish against Sydney which will finish our series against them.
"Winning some series will be really important for us."
The Spirit's next game in Bendigo is against Southside on Sunday, December 17, at 5.30pm.
