Aggressive Magnay key to JackJumpers' fortunes

The Tasmania JackJumpers withstood some hot South East Melbourne Phoenix shooting early by sticking to their guns, being aggressive and captain Will Magnay was key to that as he tries to respond to the coaching staff's urges.

The Phoenix are the highest scoring team, the fastest pace team and the most prolific three-point shooting team in the NBL and that all stems from their full-court pressure defence that allows them to get out and run in transition.

And it worked a treat for them in the first quarter on Thursday night as they piled on 36 points against the JackJumpers in Gippsland, but Tasmania turned the tide their favour outscoring the Phoenix 62 points to 45 the rest of the way for the important victory.

Key to that was being aggressive attacking the basket which saw the JackJumpers attempt 22 free throws in the first half and 34 for the game with Magnay leading that charge.

Not only did he attempt eight free throws himself, but the inspirational captain drew 10 fouls on Phoenix players which proved pivotal and he ended the game with 12 points and seven rebounds in another 29-minute performance showing he's back to full health.

Being aggressive is something that has been more of a focus for him and the Tasmania coaching staff want him to get the ball in the block and put pressure on the rim, and it's something he's trying to do more of with the help of his teammates.

"I have been challenged by the coaching staff about my effort and energy this season, and I've just made a mental challenge to myself to try and be aggressive," Magnay said.

"Credit to the team too for keeping on looking for me as well and I wouldn’t be able to do that without actually getting the ball so it's sort of a team effort. It's a little bit of a work rate thing too which is something I'm still working on."

Magnay and the JackJumpers always knew that at some point the Phoenix would catch fire just because of how they play, but what they wanted to do was stick to their guns and eventually wear them down.

Key to that was handling their ball pressure and not giving them the chance to get out and run with the JackJumpers only having eight turnovers for the game while also pulling down 53 rebounds to 44 including 14 to 10 at the offensive end.

Winning the possession game is something South East Melbourne take pride in usually doing, but Magnay was happy with how the JackJumpers turned the tide.

"It's good to get a win and it's always tough to do that on the road, but I think the way we did it was good and we just kept attacking and kept attacking, and rebounded well," he said.

"Shots didn’t fall sort of for either team, but I think we were the most aggressive and that paid off in our favour."

South East Melbourne did knock down five three-pointers on their way to the 36-point first quarter, but important for the JackJumpers was to know that it would be hard for them to keep doing that for 40 minutes.

That's exactly how it panned out with Tasmania doing well to hold the Phoenix to 45 points over the last 30 minutes while shooting 4/29 from three-point territory after quarter-time.

"They shoot some crazy threes and you're never really sure when it's going up or who's going to shoot it so you have to be always ready for that," Magnay said.

"They did hit a couple of tough ones and credit to them, they're good players and good shooters, but you just try to steady the tide a little bit and stick to what was working for us, and what offence we can get through.

"We just tried to be in gaps, keep trusting the next stunt and keep trying to rebound, but those shots are hard to make all game so we knew at some point they'd dry up a little bit and from there I think we handled it well."