It's hard to say a game was a defensive battle when both teams cracked the century mark as the Sioux Falls Skyforce outlasted the Santa Cruz Warriors 112-107 at the Sanford Pentagon Wednesday night.

Coach Nevada Smith cherishes the win, but is concerned about the habit of letting their opponents off the mat.

"We get up 12, we want to break it open, we go turnover-turnover and it's a game. We're trying to get past that and we just haven't been able to. When we do, we're going to be really tough. We're still grinding out wins and we'll do little things to win games, but (putting teams away) is what we really need to do in the next couple games."

Guard Patrick Miller scored 15 points off the bench plus had three blocked shots. Miller was also aware of the visitor’s potential fatigue.

"I know (Santa Cruz) just played last night. We tried to jump on them early which we did, but we didn't keep the lead. We knew they would have light legs, so we had to keep being aggressive in the fourth."

Sioux Falls (11-3) was led by Keith Benson’s 23 points and 7 rebounds and Jabril Trawick added 22 points in their seventeenth consecutive regular season home win.

Meanwhile Alex Hamilton led the Warriors (7-8) with 21 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists whose five game win was snapped. Both teams are back at it on Friday. Sioux Falls will play at the Iowa Energy while Santa Cruz faces the Erie BayHawks.

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