The Heat had a tough road trip to start the season losing to both Tamworth and Newcastle and they currently find themselves sitting 10^th on the 15-team Waratah League ladder.

Maloney has high hopes for the Heat this season and believed it was critical that they responded strongly this weekend against the Bears at home.

"Obviously they were very disappointing results from the weekend," Maloney said.

"But for us now we've moved on past that, we had a good film session last night and a really good training session actually.

"All that's done is put a massive importance on the game this weekend and when you go through our draw and you look at games that are must wins, this is the first one of them.

"We can't afford to drop a game like this as it could hurt us later on in the season when we are looking to make a run for finals.

"It's a really important game this weekend and we are really hoping we can get our home season off to a great start and kick start our season."

Maloney conceded it was a flat start to the season for the Heat who made too many costly mistakes against two quality sides.

"The first game one of the big things for us was our transition defence and our turnovers," he said.

"We were turning the ball over in very vulnerable places at the top of the three and above the free throw line.

"When you do that you are really vulnerable at the other end for a team to run and Tamworth capitalised on that.

"So Saturday overall there was not really many positives, but Sunday we were a little bit better.

"The biggest thing that hurt us in the Sunday game was our defensive rebounding.

"Newcastle had 30 to 40 second chance points against us, but in the second half of that one we did show a lot of positive signs.

"We got our run game going and started playing our brand of basketball and looked really good, we just left it a little bit too late."

Maloney will also play his 200^th game for the Heat this weekend against the Bears and while excited about the milestone said his major focus was on securing victory.

"Yeah I'm definitely excited," he said.

"It makes you feel a little bit older and realisation hits home, I'm really excited but all I'm really concerned about is trying to get a win.

"It's the old cliche of it's just another game, but the most important thing for me is trying to get a win in this game and doing whatever we've got to do to make that happen."

Jacob Edwards was one of the players to enjoy a strong game in their defeat to the Falcons scoring 14 points and said it would be good to celebrate Maloney's milestone with a win.

"Yeah it's always good to get a win," Edwards said.

"Especially since Zac's playing 200 games, it would add a bit of icing to the cake."

Tamworth Thunderbolts 95 d Wagga Heat 51 (Z Maloney 23, E Merkel 14)

Newcastle Falcons 116 d Wagga Heat 89 (Z Maloney 22, H Laurent 16, E Merkel 14, J Edwards 14)