‘We expect a battle’ says Vickerman ahead of Kings clash

Whenever we match up with the Sydney Kings, fans can expect an intense, hard fought contest.

That expectation remains the same as both teams look to get off to a positive start to the new NBL season.

Having won our opening three games of the 2025-26 season, Head Coach Dean Vickerman is eager to build on the team’s momentum on Wednesday evening.

“Any time we go and play the Kings up there (in Sydney), they generate a fair bit of pace with the athletes they have,” Vickerman explained.

“They haven’t shot the three-ball well yet but they have a lot of shooters on that team.

“We expect a real battle. They made some big improvements from game one to game two, but we’ve got to keep this winning streak alive.”

The game will be the first time we have faced off against former Grand Final MVP, Matthew Dellavedova, who joined the Kings in the offseason.

Tanner Krebs said he and his teammates know Dellavedova is going to come out with a lot of energy come Wednesday.

“He’s going to come out and want to get a win,” Krebs said.

“We know how he plays and his mindset so it’ll be a fun, competitive game. We’ve had a lot of success going up there and getting wins recently and our moto is going to be the same.”

Fresh off the NBAxNBL experience last week, which saw him knock down a pair of triples across his 19 minutes of play, Krebs says the team has taken away a lot of positives from the exhibition.

“We learnt a lot from that game about ourselves and where we can improve and get better.

“I thought there were a lot of positives coming out of that game, we won the rebound count which was a great sign for us and I thought our pace and ball movement, which has been the key for us all year, was also really good in that game.

“Going into this game (against Sydney), just switching our focus back to the NBL season, which has been challenging, but we did a good job today, just getting through the scout and getting ready.”

Fans can tune into the contest live on ESPN and Disney+ from 7:30pm on Wednesday evening.

Following this, the team will return to John Cain Arena for The Grassroots Game on Sunday afternoon from 4:30pm.

Tickets remain available here.