The crowd chants "defence" at a basketball game for a reason - it is what typically wins games.
You are not going to stop the opposition every play but a good defence is often the difference between winning and losing.
And that is where the Otago Nuggets have let themselves down this season, centre Lance Allred says.
"The transition 'D' [defence] is where we are hurting," he said.
"We have to get across because there are gaping holes and lay-ups being made and jumpers being hit.
"We can't be analysing our offence too much because it is just fine. We are scoring as much as we need to score.
"Our halfcourt defence, when we are locked down, we are guarding admirably. But our transition defence is something which needs to improve."
The Nuggets play the undefeated Wellington Saints for the second time in six days when the sides met at the Edgar Centre tonight. The Saints won 115-96 in Wellington, which sounds like a comfortable victory but the Nuggets let the game slip in the last quarter.
Wins there for the taking also eluded the Nuggets against the Auckland Pirates and the Southland Sharks.
The defence in the dying stages against the Sharks proved particularly costly.
"Against Auckland and Southland, we had them. It was just some fast break points here and there and that stuff adds up."
The losses to the Nelson Giants and the Saints could have produced different results had the Nuggets not drifted in and out of those games.
"If you take 5min out of each game where our transition defence was just Swiss cheese, we're right back in those games," Allred said.
"Every one of us knows we need to be doing better. There is no point calling out one particular person, because we all have little jobs to do."
The Nuggets have not won a game in the league since April 2008 and are desperate to break their 32-game losing streak.
The Saints, though, look far too strong with the likes of Tall Blacks Lindsay Tait and Casey Frank and Americans Erron Maxey and Kareem Johnson.
Maxey and Johnson combined for 51 points to help dispatch the Nuggets in Wellington, and Tait, Corey Webster, Leon Henry and Troy McLean all reached double figures in the high-scoring encounter.
Tall Black Craig Bradshaw led the scoring for the Nuggets with 26 points and Allred chipped in with 22. The pair are starting to build a good combination and the Nuggets will look to them to assert some dominance up front.
The Nuggets will also need more from their bench if they are going to threaten to break the Saints' unbeaten run this season.
Nuggets v Saints
Edgar Centre, tonight, 7pm
Otago Nuggets: Sam To'omata, Lance Allred, Craig Bradshaw, Mark Morrison, Scott O'Gallagher, Riki Buckrell, James Ross, Tom Rowe, Sam King, Matt Trueman, Hayden Miller, Ollie Smith.
Wellington Saints: Lindsay Tait, Erron Maxey, George Le'afa, Corey Webster, Leon Henry, Steve Adams, Jordan Mills, Kareem Johnson, Casey Frank, Troy McLean.
