The Gunners won the last clash between the two teams, but the in-form Heat proved too strong away from home on Saturday.

Captain Zac Maloney was thrilled to score a 78-66 victory.

“It was another good win for us,” Maloney said.

“I’m not sure us about other results yet but it could move us to second place on our own.”

It sees them move to nine wins and four losses for the season, to sit behind leaders Sutherland with three games left before finals.

Wagga led by six points at quarter-time and were able to continue increase their buffer throughout despite a couple of fight backs from the Gunners.

The Canberra side got within four points with less than four minutes left on the clock, but the Heat responded.

US import Connell Crossland led the way with 20 points, including sic of his team’s last 10, while Scott Hare scored 18.

Hare has stepped up his game in the last month and continues to impress.

However Maloney was kept very quite.

He’s averaged more than 19 points this season, but was limited to only five on Saturday night.

After receiving plenty of attention from the Gunners defence he was pleased to see the team still score so well.

“Canberra did a really good job of shutting me down, I pretty much had a double team on me every time I touched the ball, but the rest of the guys stepped up and took a lot of scoring on which definitely helps,” Maloney said.

“It just shows we’ve come as a team.

“It is what we need to do coming into this time of year and we wanted other guys scoring and getting confidence from that as if we want to win finals it is going to take a whole team effort.”

The Heat have a week off before taking on Sutherland.

They suffered a 85-54 loss last time, but Maloney believes they are coming into the return clash in much better form.

“They are on top and blew us out last time but we’ve lost four and beaten two of the teams who have already beaten us and Sutherland are next on the list,” he said.

“It is a perfect game coming in with the form that we’ve had, the week off and this close to finals.

“This is probably the team that we need to beat if we want to win a championship.

“It will be a good test to see where we are at and are really looking forward to it.”

Another bonus will be having home court advantage.