THE Willetton Tigers put together some strong basketball last weekend despite having Lara Napier in their thoughts with coach Simon Parker excited to see what his team closer to full power looks like.

The defending champions haven’t been at full strength at any point so far this Women's SBL season but last weekend was the closest they have been with Kate Malpass returning to join new import Jess Hootmann along with Stacey Barr and Zoe Harper in the line-up.

The result was an 83-75 victory in Rockingham over the Flames on Friday and then a 97-68 win at home over the South West Slammers on Sunday despite having heard the news that championship-winning teammate Napier had been a serious motorcycle accident on Friday afternoon.

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The Tigers were still able to deliver the two victories to improve to a 5-3 record on the season heading into this Saturday night's clash with the Cockburn Cougars at Wally Hagan Stadium.

Despite a slow start in Rockingham on Friday night, Parker liked much of what he saw from his group particularly the first time to see Malpass, Hootmann, Harper and Barr all play together.

"After the first half at Rockingham, we are pretty happy with how this weekend has turned out and we still have lots of work to go obviously. We still have some work to do to make sure everyone's fitting in but we're really happy with these two wins," Parker said.

"It was a pretty rocky start against Rockingham on Friday where it was about working out where everyone fit in this team.

"We might have lacked a bit of desire and intensity as well to start that game so we fell behind and were playing catch up. At half-time we worked out a way we could all play and fit together so that seemed to work OK."

While many teams have gone for more versatile and mobile line-ups in the Women's SBL, Parker knows how well his combination of Louella Tomlinson and Harper worked to deliver a title.

He is looking for something similar now with Harper and Hootmann in 2017 even if it creates some mismatches at times.

"The hard part for us is defensive match ups especially our guards on the perimeter because there are a lot of fast and younger guards coming through," he said.

"Also everyone is getting a four or five man who is mobile where we've always favoured the genuine bigs. Sometimes it can be a challenge on some of those match ups but we are finding our way."

Hootmann might have gone scoreless on 0-of-11 shooting on Sunday in the win over the Slammers, but she still made a good contribution with six rebounds, five assists and two steals.

Prior to that, she had games of 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists, 13 points and five boards, and 15 points.

Parker has no doubt she is the right fit for his team having recently arrived from Germany.

"Over her first three games she was averaging 14 points for us, which was good, but she is more of a facilitator type player. She's not always just looking to score, which is the sort of player we need on this team because we have plenty of scoring options," Parker said.

"She is an interesting player and just with her experience, she can help our girls a lot with what she's learned by playing in Europe. She has been really good with Desiree and all our young girls just telling them what they can and providing that bit of leadership."

There was little not to like about Willetton's team in 2016 on the way to winning the championship. But one area they perhaps didn’t have covered was a flat out scorer and shooter in their line-up.

That's where the recruitment of Barr this year is so far paying off great dividends and she is showing that she's more than capable of leading the league in scoring and probably shot attempts, but she is fearless and capable of knocking them down from anywhere.

Parker is enjoying having such a player at his disposal.

"At least you know now that when the ball is going around that we actually have a good chance of nailing a shot if we take one from the perimeter with Stacey there. We didn’t have that natural shooter last year as good as we were in a lot of areas," he said.

"We weren’t as good a shooting team last year also we had to play defence strongly the whole time and that opened thing up inside for us, and that's what our game was based on. It worked for us but we're just a bit different now this year.

"Good scorers can actually shoot the ball and you have to allow them to do that. They have to be good looks and stuff obviously, but they are generally good shooters. I know in her first couple of games we were fairly light on so she got a lot of shots up, but while she was making them there's nothing wrong with that.

"I've just been talking to her about taking good shots. She is allowed the luxury of taking some of those long range shots at times because she can make them, and if they go in, they go in and if not, we talk to her and tell her to maybe try something different. She's open to that advice too. She is really enjoying herself too and good players will play better with better players around them too."

It's always interesting to see how players respond the following year after becoming championship players and one player at the Tigers who appears to have gone to another level is Desiree Kelley.

She is playing with greater consistency and confidence, and having big impacts on games at both ends of the floor. Parker couldn’t be happier with her progress.

"I think she has gone to another level this year. Her progression from 18s to now, she is getting better and better every year. That's been really good to see," Parker said.

"In the league there aren’t too many players at her size who can do what she does, so we're pretty lucky to have her. She is growing all the time and we're happy with her progress."

Parker was also delighted to get his inspirational leader Malpass back last weekend. While he isn’t totally sure what her plans are, he's confident she'll be there for the business end of the season as will the rest of the group.

"We will be full tilt as far as we know for the last three rounds. Des will be back for that and if Kate does end up going away, hopefully everyone will be here for the last three rounds and the finals. That's all that matters in the end," he said.

"She's (Malpass) not too sure exactly what the plan is at this stage and it's probably a bridge we need to cross earlier rather than later because Des is going away for six and-a-half weeks as well.

"She's going to Europe. We just have to make sure we aren’t too shorthanded there. Hopefully Kate doesn’t go away for too much, but at the same time we totally understand if she does and will support her."

Considering the interrupted start to the season Willetton has had in terms of player availability, Parker is happy to be sitting at 5-3 expecting plenty of improvement to come.

"We're definitely happy with our start to the season and I don’t think people realise that we've lost one game by two points, and another one by three points," Parker said.

"It's not as though we've been blown out and in that first week against Mandurah we had our most inexperienced team and we lost only by 14 points to the league-leader. We are very happy with where we sit at the moment."

Photo by June Halliday