Why Roth is concerned, despite six straight

Tasmania JackJumpers coach Scott Roth is the last person to get too complacent about a six-game NBL winning streak and losing the rebound count against Melbourne United gives him something to ponder.

The JackJumpers continued their love affair with playing Melbourne at John Cain Arena, with Monday night's 97-91 win, which sees the defending champions move into the top four with a sixth consecutive victory.

They did it without superstar centre Will Magnay too, sidelined with a fractured toe.

Despite being out-rebounded by 17 and giving up 21 offensive rebounds, the JackJumpers dug deep for the win.

It was an all-round team effort with 47 points from the bench, including 16 from Jordon Crawford, 11 from Majok Deng, 9 from Anthony Drmic and 9 from Gorjok Gak, while Reuben Te Rangi led the starters with 15.

There was a lot for coach Roth to like, but the rebounding is somewhat of a concern.

"We've hung our hats and we will as long as I'm here for on the defensive end, so we want to have a solid defence that’s competitive to get you into the finals and then from there who knows what can happen," Roth said.

"Our offence is creeping in the right direction, but there's two or three areas we continue to harp on and one is the rebounding.

"They (United) smashed us on the glass and we were lucky enough to survive that, but we also did a good job of executing some things that we do well to counteract that ... but it is a concern for us."

While the JackJumpers played their first game for what could be the rest of the regular season without Magnay, they also unveiled new import forward Ian Hummer.

It's going to be a slow burn integrating him into the system, but what he provides is a genuine power forward that the Tasmania hasn't had since Jack McVeigh's departure.

"He's super smart and he's going to be very handy for us. He's not in basketball condition to play in games and has only been here for a week and gone through everything with jet lag," he said.

"But his minutes are going to increase and he will be a factor for us because he's smart and clever, and knows how to play the game.

"We'll get him in condition over the next week to 10 days of gradually feeding him these minutes and he will be very handy for us, especially giving us that one more extra bigger body with Will going down."

The JackJumpers now host the New Zealand Breakers on Christmas Day at MyState Bank Arena.

Last year saw Roth's team lost to the Breakers by eight points in the corresponding fixture and the Tasmania coach expects a much better effort.

"I'm kind of excited, but I'm nervous because we played probably our worst game last year on Christmas Day," Roth said.

"I just hope we have a better performance and we're going to wear some crazy uniforms and I hope we actually do better than last time, when we were god awful on Christmas Day. We'll get some rest and get back after it."