JackJumpers rediscover physical, defensive bite

Handling the South East Melbourne Phoenix pressure, stopping them getting out in transition, defending soundly and rebounding well were all key to the Tasmania JackJumpers' bounce back Ignite Cup victory.

It wasn’t looking that way early on Wednesday night in Traralgon with the JackJumpers arriving having lost seven of their past eight matches and taking on a Phoenix team coming off their biggest ever Throwdown victory.

South East Melbourne then put up 36 points in the first quarter while shooting 57 per cent from the field and going 5/9 from deep and Tasmania had some work to do.

They had done well to stay in touch and 22 free-throw attempts in the first half kept their scoring ticking over to lead at half-time while holding the Phoenix to just 12 second quarter points.

The JackJumpers went on to score the 89-81 win having outscored their opponents 62 points to 45 over the last three quarters while holding South East Melbourne to shooting 28 per cent after quarter-time from the field and 14 per cent from behind the three-point arc.

Coach Scott Roth wouldn’t go as far as saying he was delighted with the performance, but he did see it as a significant step forward.

"Delighted, let's calm down a little bit, but I'm happy about the fact that we ticked some boxes and continued to try to stabilise our defence the best we possibly can," Roth said.

"That's going to lead us to better places and we just haven’t been consistent enough for long enough in games to give us chances, but this game got in the mud which is where we love to play.

"We did a much better job just across the board with our intent to go play our defensive foundational thing, and we concentrated on those and the guys were pretty relentless.

"We had some other opportunities at the rim and we couldn’t score and the game got a little bit tight again, but they just kept grinding away and there were a lot of positives to take away."

The Phoenix pride themselves on their full-court defensive pressure and forcing turnovers, which in turn allows them to get out to and run on offence which has seen them become the highest scoring and fastest pace team in NBL26.

The JackJumpers withstood that pressure well to have just eight turnovers. Combined with 53 rebounds to 44 including 14 at the offensive end to 10, and taking 34 free throws to 26, it all added up to a winning formula.

"We were obviously very conscious about them and they are one of the hardest playing teams in the league, and they do create a lot of turnovers with their activity and the length they have," Roth said.

"You definitely have to take care of the ball and you can't be sloppy in your approach with them, and give them live ball turnovers in transition because they'll do a number on you.

"I thought for the most part we did a good job there and took care of the ball, and more importantly the rebounding was again pretty solid for us and they are things that we can do, and we have to make sure we are on point with it as we move into this next game."

Going inside was a significant focus for the JackJumpers too and that worked well with the amount they got to the foul line with Will Magnay drawing 10 fouls on his own for his 12 points and seven rebounds.

Josh Bannan also had 12 points, 12 rebounds and four assists with Majok Deng adding 12 points and five rebounds with that pair drawing five fouls between them as well with Bryce Hamilton drawing five on his way to 18 points.

"It is nice that you get rewarded if you're going to the basket, and you're getting good catches and you're attacking, which we were quite diligent about making sure we got the ball inside and slow the game down a tad," Roth said.

"We have guys who can score on the rim and if we're not getting the ball to Magnay and Deng and Bannan in there to create some action, then shame on us so we had better intent about getting them the ball interiorly."

Roth also changed his starting line-up with Ben Ayre and Nick Marshall into the first five with Tyger Campbell and David Johnson off the bench, and it did seem to work on a number of fronts.

Ayre (10 points, three assists) and Campbell (nine points) did well in the one spot splitting the 40 minutes while Marshall (12 points, seven rebounds) and Johnson (four points, two assists) did the same on the wing.

"I talked to all those guys about flipping them over and it was about getting a balance with subs off the bench and having a little bit more scoring punch with DJ, Deng and Tyger coming out with the second group," Roth said.

"We were hoping that would give us a little more balance and it's not always the right thing to do, but I just felt like it was time for us to make a little bit of a change and these guys end up roughly playing the same amount of minutes as they always do anyway.

"If you're a player you want to finish the games and it's not necessarily who you start, and we got good balance across the line and there was some good overall team play for us.

"He (Ayre) gave us great energy coming out and he has been giving us great energy throughout the season, and him and Tyger for them to have that kind of game is exactly what we're looking for from that point guard spot."

The JackJumpers now remain on the road to take on the Cairns Taipans in Far North Queensland on Saturday as they look to make it consecutive wins, but it won't be easy with the Snakes fresh off beating Illawarra and with Tasmania hero Jack McVeigh likely back in the line-up.

"Every game is going to be difficult the rest of the way and there's a lot of teams vying in that same spot, and they're all difficult and Cairns got us the first time around," Roth said.

"They have a lot of talented players and are very similar to this group (Phoenix) in some ways with their shooting so we'll just have to be on point and get our rest tomorrow as we travel back to Melbourne, and start to look forward to playing up in Cairns.

"We should be excited about what's ahead of us and we'll just keep attacking."