(Daniel Eade is a freelance journalist who covers the Australian basketball scene.)

The Melbourne Tigers will attempt to resuscitate their season this weekend when they play two games, opening with a home-date against the Perth Wildcats on Friday night and backing up on Sunday for a road game against the Gold Coast Blaze, with the spectre of opening the season with an 0-7 clip haunting their every move and threatening to force the NBL's only winless team into a much-required makeover.

The Tigers have been more valiant in their last three outings, narrowly losing to the New Zealand Breakers while blowing opportunities against the Wollongong Hawks in back-to-back games, but the vultures have began to circle and can sense blood as the final nail in the Tigers' season is about to be hammered shut.

The first gigantic task that the Tigers must overcome is Friday night's stoush with the reigning champions, Perth Wildcats, who are renowned for their ability to pressure the ball full-court, scratch and bite, and play a physical brand of basketball, as the Tigers were witness too in round two when the Wildcats humiliated the Tigers by a whopping 25 points in front of a shocked enclosure at The Cage.

That was the same night when the Tigers amassed an appalling 31 turnovers, the majority of which Tigers head coach Al Westover described as ‘self-inflicted.'

Last weekend, the Wildcats smashed the Breakers into oblivion with an astounding 40-point thumping in the Wild West, 114-74. As the Wildcats rediscover their mojo after a rocky opening to the season, their resurgence could not have come at a worse moment for the Tigers.

With question marks still surrounding the fitness and availability of their marquee off-season signing, Cameron Tragardh, who missed last Sunday's game in the ‘Gong with an elbow infection, the Tigers will keep their most recent starting line-up intact with TJ Campbell, Eric Devendorf and Tommy Greer joined in the first five by Matt Burston and Luke Nevill. But if Tragardh is passed fit, expect him to start at the expense of Burston.

On Sunday, the Tigers venture up to the Gold Coast, where they have an excellent opportunity to break their duck (providing they don't surprise the world on Friday night and defeat the Wildcats) when they step into the ring with the Blaze.

The Blaze themselves have been very up and down, but for the majority have been down, and sit on a 2-3 record after they were smashed by the Cairns Taipans by 20-points last week, 96-76.

In the Blaze's two victories they have fought back from massive deficits, defeating the Townsville Crocodiles after trailing by 20 points mid-way though the third period in round two, and climbing back from a 14-point deficit at quarter time in round three to defeat the Taipans.

The Blaze could consider themselves lucky not to be winless, and after recently adding a pair of new imports, Ira Clark and Darryl Hudson, to cover for the injured Anthony Petrie and sacked James Maye, the Blaze may not yet be accustomed to one another and are ripe for the Tigers to pick off.

One team that have been seriously handicapped by the extension of the three-point line is the Blaze, their top four marksmen all firing at sub-standard percentages: James Harvey at 26% (7/26), Chris Goulding 17% (3/17), Mark Worthington 15% (4/26) and Adam Gibson 13% (3/22).

Melbourne have allowed their opponents to tear them apart from deep this season with their inability to rotate on defence effectively, and if the Blaze (23/122 on three pointers at 18% this season) can continue to be ice-cold from the outside then maybe the Tigers will catch a break after already having Sydney (7/20), Perth (10/23), New Zealand (13/30) and Wollongong (11/29 and 7/18) burn them through the first five rounds with back breaking shots from beyond the arc.

With a frightening proposition facing them, the Tigers have the weekend to get the wheel turning in their favour and finally snatch their first win of the season, and who knows what kind of hype and hysteria would follow if they managed two wins? Conversely, Tigers' fans won't want to think about the ramifications of two more losses.