King apologises to fans after Throwdown shooting slump

When you're a three-point shooting team, there'll be nights it deserts you, and the South East Melbourne Phoenix found that out the hard way in Throwdown 33.

Josh King, though, believes a dose of early-season adversity could be just what his group needs.

King is eager to see how his side responds after managing just four fourth-quarter points in Thursday night's 25-point loss to Melbourne United at John Cain Arena.

They started the season well with a big win in Perth and a tight loss in Tasmania, but went 4/41 from behind the three-point line in the Throwdown, with a 0/10 first quarter, and it never really improved.

"We weren't our best tonight and I want to apologise to the fans, it was a great crowd and we'll be better, I know that," King said post-game.

"What do I think led to that? I could make every excuse under the sun why I think we shot 4/41 from three, it was a bad shooting night that I haven't seen in the two-plus years I've been here.

"It's by far our worst performance and we picked a bad night to do it, but I can't pinpoint why other than giving Melbourne United a little bit of credit for that.

"I think we had a lot of really good looks that for whatever reason, maybe nerves from guys that haven't played in John Cain before, but a lot of guys that have also didn't shoot the ball well. I can't pinpoint an exact reason why we didn't shoot the ball well tonight."

King suspects his players may have bought into the early-season hype, so copping some criticism after the 25-point loss might not be the worst thing.

"I just told the guys in the locker room that this will be good because instead of people saying it's 'South East Melbourne is really good', it's 'South East Melbourne sucks'," he added.

"Maybe that's what they need to motivate themselves but we'll see where we fall in line and I always say this that no one finds out the true character of their team until they face adversity.

"This isn't crazy adversity, but it's a little bit of adversity, so we'll see where we're at and that's why I'm excited to see how we respond."