Coach Yvette McCausland-Durie is uncertain when Katrina Grant will be back on court for the Central Pulse.
The Silver Ferns defender missed Saturday's 75-40 thumping at the hands of the Adelaide Thunderbirds - the highest ANZ Championship score in history - with bone bruising in her foot which saw her sporting a moon boot on the sidelines at TSB Bank Arena while her team-mates were being run ragged by their Australian opponents.
"She's had an issue with her foot since November," explained the Pulse coach.
"She got a little bit of glass in it and they got that piece out but in the meantime I think she'd started walking on it a little bit funny so that caused a bit of an issue around the side of her
foot.
"She's constantly been in and out of physio. She's been having MRIs and keeping a good check on it.
"We'd hoped that we'd never get to the point where she had to be removed from the court but the loading is just too much at this point.
"She's getting assessed every week … and we're going with the worst case scenario and looking after her as much as we can. We've got one more game then a bye and maybe it will take that period of time [to get right]."
While McCausland-Durie refused to use her star defender's absence as an excuse for the worst loss of the season so far there was no doubt the 22-year-old was missed.
Thunderbirds goal shooter Carla Borrego dominated the circle using her height and leg split to good effect as her feeders, centre Natalie von Bertouch and Erin Bell, seemingly picked her out at will despite the best efforts of Ama Agbeze and Bessie Manu.
The 1.93m Jamaican missed just one of her 59 attempts, while Kate Beveridge also shot a decent 16 from 19 before being replaced by Jasmine Keene (1/1) late in the match.
"She's really easy to feed and really easy to play with and I think she did a fantastic job today," said captain von Bertouch of Borrego.
"We just throw it up there and she tends to be really strong in the air. She's played basketball and she doesn't get moved off the ball at all."
Despite the 35-goal margin, von Bertouch said her players knew they had been in a game.
"The score-line looks like it was an easy game but it absolutely doesn't give them credit for how much they pushed us on court," she insisted.
"Each ball that we went for we were pushed. It was a hard-fought game throughout. Even though the final margin makes it look like it was an easy game it wasn't."
Pulse skipper Jane Altschwager said her win-less team had to get back to doing the basics right if it was going to turnaround its fortunes.
"We've got to go back to the very basics of catching and throwing, putting it in the right position, actually giving it to the person when they are in front rather than being hesitant about it. We just need to get the confidence back in each other."
McCausland-Durie backed her players to bounce back. "I've got to keep backing them. I've seen enough to say this group has got potential to go further.
"It's going to be great when it comes together and I really hope it does this season because they have worked incredibly hard."