JackJumpers try to stay fresh in hectic stretch

Despite a few too many self-inflicted errors that were costly on Boxing Day, Scott Roth still feels the Tasmania JackJumpers are trending in the right direction while right in the middle of a gruelling schedule either side of the new year.

How quickly things change is on show in the space of the week where last Sunday after losing at home to the Perth Wildcats, the JackJumpers had just played their first game in eight days.

Now suddenly a week later and they have played three games in six days, and now are preparing to host the South East Melbourne Phoenix back at MyState Bank Arena this Monday night.

Then straight from there, the JackJumpers play in Wollongong against the Illawarra Hawks on New Year's Eve and then are back to Hobart to host Melbourne United on January 3.

That will mean the JackJumpers will have played six matches in 14 days with Roth just focused on trying to keep his players as fresh as possible following the Boxing Day overtime loss to the New Zealand Breakers.

"We're just trying to recover here and we play almost every other day moving forward until I think we get to January 4," Roth said.

"So it's just about trying to rest and doing some light recovery and video work, and then we play again and then we travel, and play 48 hours later again and then come back to play 48 hours later again.

"They're just coming rapid fire and right now it's just about our guys recovering and staying as fit as we possibly can. It's quite the stretch."

Looking back on Friday's game against the Breakers, Roth liked the competitive nature of the contest that went to overtime, but ultimately just felt it was too many self-inflicted wounds that the JackJumpers had which cost them the win.

"It was a hell of a game and it was a battle, and it was back and forth, and physical and the whole nine yards, but we just had two things that hurt us," Roth said.

"One was just some crazy turnovers that were unforced self-inflicted wounds that led to some bad decisions and bad turnovers.

"The second one was we fell in love with the three-point line and didn’t attack the rim enough, and we're not necessarily a three-point shooting team.

"That's not how we're built and we did probably the opposite of what we did against United by settling for a lot of jump shots.

"We have to play with more force than that and need a bit more maturity because when we went on a couple of runs we should some quick three balls to let them back in it."

Despite the Boxing Day defeat to the Breakers which is the third time the JackJumpers have lost to them now in NBL26, Roth does feel like his team are continuing to take significant steps forward.

Since the FIBA break, they have won three of six games but two of those defeats were to New Zealand and the other a competitive showing last Sunday at home to the Perth Wildcats that could have gone either way.

With the team largely at full health too aside from awaiting the returns of Anthony Drmic and Kobe Williamson, Roth thinks they are heading in the right direction if they can just tidy up some things.

"The positive is that we are playing better over the last three or four weeks and our defence is getting better, and we are making some strides in some areas," Roth said.

"The fight that we have is really good and now it's just about the group intelligence and so on and so forth that has to continue to build.

"It was tough too with Tyger (Campbell) fouling out and not having him on the floor because he's a low turnover guy in general who handles the ball for us so we had to put some guys in different positions."

The emergence of Nick Marshall throughout this season continues to be a shining example of what happens when a player who has patiently bided his time can do when given increased opportunities.

He stepped up again impressively on Boxing Day scoring the JackJumpers' last 10 points of the game on the way to 15 for the night with 10 rebounds in his 100th NBL appearance having started off in Adelaide before joining Tasmania.

Roth loves the versatility, energy and effort he continues to bring.

"He's a glue guy who can play multiple positions and guard multiple positions, and he's just got a really good motor," Roth said.

"He's fitted in obviously extremely well especially after getting thrown in the fire a bit with DJ (David Johnson) being out hurt for eight or nine weeks there and he had to play a lot for us.

"I think the confidence that he got in that time has been helpful for us but he's been really, really good and thank god for him in the first five or six minutes or we would have been in a bigger hole than we actually got ourselves into."

Bizarrely right across the NBL season home court advantage appears to be counting for precious little and from the 102 games played so far, the road team has won 53 of those with the JackJumpers contributing to that.

Tasmania have lost eight of 10 games in their home state this season including two of the eight at MyState Bank Arena, and while it's a concern for Roth, it's also not exactly you plan for or can work on fixing.

"I'm concerned about it but it's kinda over with at this point and we're 2-8 so it's not going to get too much better other than if we can try to get it back to .500," Roth said.

"There's only 10 or 11 games left so it is what it is and maybe we should play on the road more at the end of the day, but we haven’t done well at home and ultimately as long as I've been around, you need to have a winning record at home and some consistency at home to actually do or anything or get into the playoffs.

"That's where you build your momentum and we haven’t been able to do that."