"Big upside" exists for United

Melbourne United coach Dean Vickerman was delighted with how his team held down the fort with key players missing but wants them to figure things out better now that everyone is available.

United bounced back from Saturday's 19-point loss in Adelaide to build a 20-point lead in the third quarter on the Kings in Sydney on Thursday night before executing a wonderful last possession to score the 90-88 win.

That gave Melbourne just a second win in the last seven games but it still occupies second spot at 14-9 with Chris Goulding and Marcus Lee returning in the last three games.

United now head to New Plymouth to play New Zealand on Monday looking to win consecutive games for the first time since making it five on the trot with the 27-point win against the Breakers on December 5.

"I thought we had a really positive game when we went over there and played last time and it was one of the ones where we had three guys out I think, and it was one of our real positive wins," Vickerman said.

"We go over there with a lot of confidence with how we play, but the challenge for this group right now that we have everybody healthy is what are the step ups that everybody can make.

"I tried to sub tonight if I didn’t think we were doing the right things defensively and I've got to maintain that if I see any sorts of slippages, there has to be a timeout to change coverages or to do it better. I have to pull people in and out if they're not doing the right things defensively."

Vickerman could scarcely fault anything Melbourne did for the first two and-a-half quarters against the Kings to be leading by 20 halfway through the third quarter.

They were taking care of the ball, their defence had been strong especially with Shea Ili and Matthew Dellavedova combining to shut down Jaylen Adams and force the Kings star into being a -26 in his 22 minutes with just seven points and three turnovers.

Vickerman then saw some familiar concerns creep in.

"The part that scared me was that we had one turnover for the half but then something like eight in the second half, and I thought we just threw the ball to them and fuelled them a little bit," Vickerman said.

"There's a 14-0 run there so that's always pretty concerning, but I thought composure at the start of the fourth when it was at six saw us get it back out with an 8-0 run ourselves.

"That’s what I'm really proud of in this group because they were under threat and we composed ourselves, and then were obviously under threat again and we execute to get a win. There were a lot of positives to come out of this one."

Melbourne beat Sydney but still only shot the ball at 43 per cent from the field and went 5/27 from behind the three-point line including Goulding going 5/16 and Ian Clark 1/9.

Besides that, there are areas of concern for Vickerman, including Ili not being rewarded for the physical pressure he is currently enduring.

"It's still an issue for us that we're not shooting the ball well right now. Even the win in Cairns, we shot the ball poorly and we shot poorly from three again tonight so there's a big upside to what we're doing," Vickerman said.

"Part of what we wanted to try and achieve in this game offensively was to attack the paint more, and the referees have been calling a lot of things there.

"Shea got rewarded on drives tonight but certainly didn’t get rewarded around the floor where I thought what he's getting called for fouls and what he's not getting calls for fouls right now as an offensive player is quite ridiculous.

"He's playing at a super high level and should be rewarded for some of the things he's doing right now."

Vickerman has no concerns over Ili earning foul calls when he's taking the ball to the basket, but it's the physical pressure that both he and Goulding are forced to endure on the perimeter and bringing it up the court that he could no longer hold his tongue over.

"To me Bul (Kuol) is such an aggressive defender and to me when he guarded Chris, there's two hands on Chris and he doesn’t have freedom of movement," Vickerman said.

"But when (Shea) is trying to catch an inbound, he's got his arms around his waist and they just weren’t calling that. For whatever reason he's not getting the respect at the offensive end to get the same calls as other people in the league."