Cairns Taipans will welcome back injured pair Stephen Weigh and Nate Jawai for their round two NBL clash with the Sydney Kings.
But coach Aaron Fearne warns it will take time before they settle back in to the side's starting line-up.
With Travis Trice and Mark Worthington returning for time on the sidelines in time to play in Saturday night's away loss to the Perth Wildcats, Fearne said that it is difficult to manage so many players who have had limited preparations.
"To have Nate, Wortho, Travis, Stevie Weigh out for five games (including pre-season) are a huge part of what we're gonna do and it's a huge challenge to work them back in," he said.
"It's not like we're talking about working one guy back in; we're talking about four starters really.
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"It's up to me to work them in, not just throw them in and we go two steps backwards to get moving forward."
Worthington came off the bench against the Wildcats and still played 36 minutes, while Trice played 23 minutes for a return of just two points.
In his senior year at Michigan State in the US, Trice averaged a team-high 15.3 points per game.
While Fearne said the Taipans would find some positives out of taking the reigning champions to overtime on their own court, there was also a lot to learn from the loss.
For starters, a side isn't going to win too many games shooting as poorly as Cairns did on Saturday.
At half-time they scored 23 points at 21 per cent shooting efficiency and improved that to 74 points at 30 per cent for the game.
"It's hard to win a game shooting 30 per cent," Fearne said.
"I'm big on preparation and discipline and execution and we just broke down in numerous ways.
"We have a lot to things to learn from that game; individually guys have to work harder, be prepared better, have to have better leadership.
"We lacked some direction out there at times, especially down the stretch I didn't know what we were running."
Cairns are away for their second consecutive week in round two when they play Sydney at Qudos Bank Arena on Saturday.
