JackJumpers need to rediscover defensive bite: Roth

The Tasmania JackJumpers have built themselves around defence in their first two NBL seasons and that's exactly why coach Scott Roth knows they need to find that again or can't expect to achieve anything.

Thursday night's NBL saw the New Zealand Breakers beat the JackJumpers 97-92 in Launceston before the Perth Wildcats made it four straight defeating the Cairns Taipans 88-80 at RAC Arena.

The JackJumpers have been one of the top four teams in their first two NBL seasons. That has been based around being a defensively minded team who slows the game down, locks down the opposition and turns games into a battle.

That hasn’t been the case so far this season and while getting better offensively with the additional firepower with the likes of Jordon Crawford and Majok Deng, their defence has taken a hit.

Over their 66 matches the last two seasons, the JackJumpers averaged giving up 81.3 points and only conceded 90 or more on 16 occasions, and over 100 just three times.

Already in NBL24 they have conceded 90 points or more four times and that included another 97 to the Breakers.

While the JackJumpers did score another 92 points themselves and entered the round as the best offensively rated team in the league, Roth wants them to rediscover their defensive identity.

"We're scoring at a relatively good pace and our offence is generating points, but it's fool's gold at the end of the day," Roth said.

"If you're not able to defend at some sort of consistent basis, you're just going to be kind of all over the map and that will lead to not getting into playoffs, and not finishing in the top six.

"It's a fragile balance of trying to get those two working together and it's a work in progress."

It wasn’t as though there weren’t positives against the Breakers for Tasmania, though, and the biggest was former NBL Most Improved Player, and NBA centre Will Magnay.

In just his second appearance of the season, he was a defensive beast with four blocked shots while pulling down 13 rebounds and made his mark offensively with 20 points.

Roth is expecting Magnay to keep improving as he finds his groove again to provide a potentially outstanding twin tower pairing with import Marcus Lee.

"He was a monster and no offence to him, but I was a little shocked actually that he was able to conditioning wise that much," Roth said.

"But he's worked so hard to get back and it's obviously a really good sign for us. We'll have one more game with him now and then we'll have another 10 or 12 days off to recuperate and get back on it.

"Having him in the line-up is obviously very, very handy and he was fantastic for us."

Magnay himself was glad to make such an impact in just his second game back and is looking forward to continuing to build on that.

"I’ve worked hard to get back and I think the big thing for me right now is to not get too far ahead of myself," Magnay added.

"It was one of those nights for me where the shots were there and they were falling in, I made my free throws which I’m happy about, but I’m most pleased with my rebounding. It’s something I’ve focused on coming back. 

"We’re not the best defensive rebounding team and it’s definitely something I can come in and try to clean up."

The JackJumpers will continue their Round 8 campaign when they take on Cairns on Saturday at 5:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo.