Yet when the 25-year-old looks twice, he sees a group of players determined to make the most of their chance to dig the Illawarra Hawks out of the NBL doldrums.

The Hawks slipped to 1-7 in a 14-point loss at the hands of the Brisbane Bullets in front of 3808 at the AIS Arena on Sunday.

The Hawks were kept to their lowest score of the season in an 83-69 defeat which made AJ Ogilvy's 150^th NBL game one to forget as Illawarra adjust to life without Aaron Brooks.

Hawks coach Matt Flinn always knew this year was going to be a challenge - after all, 18-year-old point guard LaMelo Ball can only do so much having posted 19 points and five assists in Canberra.

Which is why Dech is refusing to rest on his laurels and accept defeat as par for the course with a chance to right the wrongs on the horizon.

"It's huge. AB was really our floor general and leader out there at both ends of the court," Dech said.

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"For us young guys, we learnt from that. Over this next stretch, it's next man up, we have to step up. On any given night, one of us can have a big night but we have to stay on the same page.

"On the floor it's collective. LaMelo is a really young point guard, and Emmett [Naar] as well, but it starts with everyone.

"Once we get the message from the coach, we just relay it so everyone on the court gets the message at the same time and play that way."

Cameras all around the stands followed Ball's every move as he continues his journey towards the NBA Draft in the driver's seat of a side resembling anything but a well-oiled machine.

Plenty seem to have their answer: Get Todd Blanchfield more shots, rein yourselves in from the perimeter and get to the basket. Fair, given Illawarra shot at 27 per cent from long range.

Flinn's hands were tied to an extent - he was down a man with Sam Froling ruled out in the warm-up after picking up an ankle injury during the week.

"Undermanned. I'm not really a person or a coach that looks for excuses," Flinn said.

"We knew we were down, Aaron did a lot for our team at the defensive end of the floor as well so I just thought they jumped us at the start and we didn't come out ready to go.

"It was really disappointing again, the slow start and giving up 27 in the first quarter. I really believed we turned a corner against Perth. But again you see the drive we were missing, we just didn't execute at the defensive end.

"[Ball] is a talented kid, he can get to the hole and he creates for other people. But again, we play at both ends of the floor, and at times, not just Melo, but we had multiple breakdowns defensively."

While the scoreboard didn't make for pretty reading, a near sold-out arena was a welcome sign for Hawks and NBL officials as they look to make strides in the capital city.

For now it is not the happiest of hunting grounds for the Hawks after Jason Cadee added 16 points from the bench for a Bullets side riding a wave of confidence.

"It's probably more from how we trained this week. We just came in with a different attitude this week at training," Cadee said.

"Maybe it was off the back of some losses [we got] a bit of a wake-up call. There was just a real energy about the group to just get better and really come in and do a job this weekend.

"You never want to lose, but it sometimes does give you a wake-up call. We're building a lot of character on the road. If we can just not lose again, that would be really good."

AT A GLANCE

NBL round five: BRISBANE BULLETS 83 (Nathan Sobey 18, Jason Cadee 16, Matthew Hodgson 15) bt ILLAWARRA HAWKS 69 (LaMelo Ball 19, Todd Blanchfield 10, Josh Boone 9) at AIS Arena. Crowd: 3808.