Heat keep top six in sight after splitting road double

A poor start to the third quarter cost the Heat in a 95-75 loss to Hornsby on Saturday, before they hit back against the Waratah League's bottom-placed side St George White 86-77 on Sunday.

The Heat are now 3-7, two games outside the top six. However seven of their last ten games are at home, including six of the next seven.

"We've had a bit of a squiz at it, and it's probably something we might start looking towards (finals prospects)," player-coach Zac Maloney said.

"We'll take the games as they come and if we rack up wins, but we're not to hang our hat on if we make finals."

Maloney and Jacob Edwards both scored 23 points against Hornsby, and 14 first quarter points from Maloney (26 points, seven three pointers) set up an ultimately decisive 28-14 lead against St George White.

Maloney said it was a focus to become more aggressive on the weekend, but also ensure teammates are getting chances to develop their games.

"Looking at the last few weeks, I've sort of taken a back step and realised I need to be a bit more aggressive myself," he said.

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"It was a conscious thing all weekend, to look for my shot a bit more and still do all the team things, but understand the team probably needs more of a scoring punch from me.

"It's a tricky line sometimes, you don't want to be the coach out there shooting the ball every time you touch it.

"But I've worked out a good balance and was aggressive, and Jake had it going as well. The boys did a good job of recognising there was a couple of hot hands and got us the ball when we needed it, but it was still fairly well balanced."

Maloney is relatively pleased with the first half of the season, but lamented a couple of games they let slip.

"Coming into the season we weren't sure what to expect. I had it on the radar we'd get a couple of wins, but we could easily be 5-5 right now," he said.

"I'm not going to say we've exceeded expectations, but we've done a good job of working towards what we want to be, and the wins have come.

"The short term goal is we still go into games to win them. Getting a couple of wins keeps the boys motivated and we know every game we go in, we're a chance to win it."

The Heat will have this weekend off before they host Shoalhaven Tigers next Saturday.

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