Edwards flips the script as United bounce back

The Edwards–Magnay duel was box office, but the final two minutes belonged to Jesse Edwards as Will Magnay went down with a nasty foot injury.

Edwards did admit to taking a little personally when Magnay had 27 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks in the JackJumpers' win over United back on January 3.

It was a fascinating big man battle all night, with the two of them combining for 17 points in the first quarter, even with Edwards again picking up two early fouls.

The United big man maintained his rage all evening to finish with 21 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks, one of which was a match-deciding one on Josh Bannan in the last minute.

He couldn’t have been happier with both the result and his personal performance.

"It's something that when you go into a game you're wanting to win your personal matchup always and most of all wanting to get the win especially in this matchup where we had two tough ones before," Edwards said.

"I'm definitely happy and it was a good team performance, and the guys are definitely feeling good after that.

"It's really just one that you want to pull out and it's a close one, and they've all been close ones, so winning those is really a testament to the team that pulled us through to the end after they've done that a couple of times against us.

"I'm just really glad that we're the one that did that tonight, so everybody's happy."

It's always a delicate balancing act for any player on a team as deep as United to get the mix right between doing all the team things, but also just take the bull by the horns to be dominant and aggressive.

That's extra tough when Dean Vickerman made it a focus to play 12 players to lengthen his rotation against the JackJumpers, with all 12 out there for at least three minutes, and nine of them in double-figures time on court.

As United try to rediscover that momentum from the 9-0 start to NBL26, Edwards feels the coach is getting the balance right.

"I guess that's a good way to put it (balancing act), because you always want to help the team and are trying to figure out how to do that most of the team, and when the season started we had a really good flow so that kinda worked itself out," Edwards said.

"Then right now, you're trying to be as aggressive as I can without you know hogging the ball or trying to take every shot, but it's just about getting a feel for when opportunities are there and I think we're getting better at that, and to really do that together."

Afterwards, JackJumpers coach Scott Roth wasn't expecting good news on Magnay's foot when he landed awkwardly on it with just over two minutes left in the game and went straight to the locker room.

"I obviously don't know until we get back to Hobart, but it's probably not going to be very good," he said.

"It is his foot, yeah."