On a night where the South East Melbourne Phoenix found their shooting range, their most important piece might well have been doing all his work around the basket and French big man Yannis Morin is giving Josh King just what he was hoping.
For good reason what the Phoenix did at the offensive end on Saturday night at John Cain Arena against the Adelaide 36ers will become the talking point out of the eventual 108-94 victory.
After all, they made their first 10 shots including seven from beyond the arc and put up 42 points in the first quarter on 16/21 shooting from the field and 10/12 from the outside.
They were leading by 29 at half-time with 72 points on 27/39 shooting at 69 per cent and 13/20 from deep too.
But defensively is where it all started for coach King and that fuelled what they were able to do offensively, and it all started with their French centre.
Morin set the tone on the very first possession when guarding Adelaide's Nick Rakocevic and his impact in the win was as significant as anyone with nine points, eight rebounds (three offensive), four assists, two steals and two blocks in 25 minutes.
"Yannis got a deflection on the first play of the game when they tried to post Rak up and he deflected the ball out of bounds, and almost forced the turnover," King said.
"That's setting the tone for the entire game and just letting the other team know that it's not going to be easy if you're going to beat us.
"That's a huge play that no one will talk about but that is setting the tone for our entire team, and that stuff is contagious.
"We need more of it and we don't need him to be the only one, and he's not the only one, but those small wins end up being big wins."
His teammate D'Shawn Schwartz was one Phoenix player to catch fire early with 10 points on 2/2 three-point shooting in the first quarter on his way to 20 points on 3/6.
He too credited the defence of Morin and is thankful for making sure he also gets safely to their home games at John Cain Arena.
"First of all, he gives me a ride to the games every day so I like him for that, but he does a good job of really just imposing his will," Schwartz said.
"He gets his hands on a lot of basketballs and he plays hard. He plays hard when he's in there especially against these bigs that like to rim run in this league so him providing some protection and getting back is so important.
"He had a great dunk tonight too that brought a lot of energy and fire to our bench and our team. I love what he's doing out there."
King obviously knew that the Phoenix had started well on the back of hitting their first 10 shots to be leading 27-10 just over five minutes into the game.
That didn’t surprise him because he always had faith his team would find their shooting touch but there's still room for improvement after just 36 points on 11/38 shooting in the second half.
"I didn’t realise that at the time, but it's always fun when you're making shots," King said.
"It helps everything and obviously we've struggled shooting the ball this year but we've been getting good looks from really good shooters.
"Like we continue to preach, water will find its level and hopefully it continues to do that because we have a ways to go to find that level. But I'm just happy with the mindset and the want to from the collective group tonight."
While the talk will be centred around the Phoenix having 42 points in the first quarter and 72 to half-time, what King was pleased more about was that they found closer to the defensive identity he's been looking for.
Adelaide had 11 turnovers in the first half and struggled to get the ball up the floor at times when anyone but Bryce Cotton had the ball in hands.
That's just what King wants the Phoenix to do both to take the opposition out of what they're trying to do, but they can then counterpunch offensively and run on the back of the turnovers.
"It's all connected and we made our shots in the first quarter, but we made shots because we were getting stops," King said.
"That's what our DNA is, we want to speed teams up, we want to make them rush and we want to turn them over, and we want them to be uncomfortable and take guarded and tough shots.
"If they make them, then OK, but I thought we did an excellent job in the first and the best job all year long.
"Everybody will talk about our made shots, but I thought our defence in that first half was outstanding. Hopefully we can continue to build on that too and put four quarters together."
As for Schwartz, he always had faith that his shots would start to fall just like with the rest of his teammates because he'd put in the work, and it became contagious when everyone started hitting early on.
"I think it's all about daily deposits of the work we put in every day at practice. We've got a good group and iron sharpens iron so every day we come to work we're trying to make each other better so I think that just helps the collective," Schwartz said.
"Making shots is contagious too and the way we played and shared the ball tonight, we've got a team full of guys where it can be anybody's night on any given night.
"So we just continue to shoot the ball when we're open and they're going to start falling. It's a lot of fun when they're falling like that and we're excited and supported each and everybody, one through 14, on this team.
"It doesn’t matter who's making shots, we're excited for them."