"We sabotage ourselves": United's worrying trend

Whether it's lashing out at opponents, not finishing 'gimme' baskets or missing assignments, or lapses in concentration, Dean Vickerman says Melbourne United can only blame themselves for their current plight.

Melbourne is now in unfamiliar territory, after a four-game losing streak and an incredibly challenging run of seven road matches ahead.

Coming off three straight losses where they were giving up 112.3 points against the Brisbane Bullets, Illawarra Hawks and South East Melbourne Phoenix, United conceded another 36 points to the Tasmania JackJumpers by quarter-time on Monday night.

Vickerman saw some better signs thereafter, but it wasn’t enough to get the job done.

Despite out-rebounding the JackJumpers 51-34 and pulling down 21 offensive rebounds, coupled with the strong returns of Marcus Lee (14 points, six rebounds, three blocks) and Chris Goulding (18 points, 4/9 from deep), Melbourne lost 91-97.

"There's still the same things that are hurting us right now and that's the consistency of trying to get a run going, and either blowing a layup, missing a free-throw or missing a coverage right now," Vickerman said.

"We're still doing things to sabotage ourselves right now and we get the disciplines to do those things consistently and we saw improvements in the group in other areas tonight."

What is of more concern for Vickerman is that for such an experienced group, who have won NBA, NBL and championships all over the world and played on the international stage, they are making mistakes just through a lack of focus or concentration.

That's most obvious on not completing plays around the rim, but also manifests with another 11/20 free-throw shooting night and allowing Tasmania's shooters to get good looks, sending them to the foul line 22 times.

"We're just not finishing off plays at a high enough level right now. We'll continue to look at if we're getting great shots or not and it's just a focus on the concentration of finishing right now," he said.

"We played the right way tonight and it's just disappointing to have 23 assists and share the basketball, to dominate the rebounding and they (the JackJumpers) just made shots.

"Teams have come in here and done that too well against us now the last few games in our building. There were some things we got wrong in coverage tonight and that's on us."

Melbourne has little time to stew on the fourth straight loss, with their first of seven straight road games taking place in Cairns on Boxing Day.

Vickerman knows that it's not too often a team dominates the boards like United did on Monday and loses, and he just hopes they can start seeing the results, before it's too late.

"I take it that it's a positive, because we've harped on it for three weeks now about our rebounding needing to get better, and it was," Vickerman said.

"Any time you beat someone by close to 20 on the boards you should win the basketball game, so we're just going to look at it and see what were the things that stopped us winning this basketball game.

"There'll be a lot of positives but if we can't stop the relieving the pressure part, teams are going to feel they are always in the basketball game."