Yorick Williams has called on his Brighton Bears to do the defensive dirty work needed to be the best in the country.

Bears take on UConn Huskies in a challenge match at the Brighton Centre tonight (7pm) and also have minds on Sunday's BBL Cup semi-final, which sees them tackle Milton Keynes Lions on neutral territory at Ponds Forge in Sheffield (3pm).

Dramatic wins at Newcastle Eagles and London Towers have left Bears in the thick of the league title race and they will be favourites to get past the improving Lions and head to a final against Chester or Scottish Rocks.

As scoring exploits of players like Steve Lepore, Ryan Huntley and Andrew Alleyne hog the headlines, though, Williams reckons attention to detail when they do not have the ball can help Bears reach new heights.

The skipper does not speak out in public too much so, when he does, he will be hoping the message hits home.

He said: "There needs to be a lot more emphasis on players taking pride in stopping their guy.

"There's no point me scoring 35 points and the guy I'm guarding scoring 35 points.

"You cancel each other out. You've done no work for the night.

"All you've concentrated on is offence and not concentrated on defence.

"As an individual you have to take stock of your own man on defence."

The Bears star did a good defensive operation on Jerry Williams last week as the Towers star finished on 18 points, ten below his season's average.

Few in blue will complain if Tony Holley can do a similar job on Lions' main threat Shawn Jamison on Sunday.

The reminder about defensive awareness is timely against a Lions side who will grind the game out, look to stick close and play on Bears' nerves before attempting to land a killer blow, possibly through Brett Longpre from three-point range.

Williams added: "Our overall team defence needs to step up at least 50 per cent.

"We're in one gear now and I believe we can take it up to another gear as a team, definitely.

"You can always score out of defence but you can't play defence out of offence."

Point guard Huntley joined the call against complacency as Bears take on a team against whom their record in the Nick Nurse era reads played 14, won 14.

Few of those wins have been easy and Huntley, who has only played in one of them, said: "You can't afford to get satisfied, that's when you lose games.

"Right now everybody is adding their little piece and that took us past Towers. Even though some players didn't have good offensive nights, they contributed defensively."

While Williams looks to galvanise his team for action, Bears might just have another reason for motivation.

They have won one piece of silverware in the last two seasons and will look to continue, or improve on that strike rate.

In fact, there is a strong case for arguing that track record represents under-achievement.

Andrew Alleyne, who takes on his former club on Sunday, admitted: "We had a hell of team last year. We should have won at least two trophies but it wasn't meant to be.

"I'm happy to win one because that was my first as a professional in the country.

"Milton Keynes are a good team. They've got Shawn, who is a strong post player, and they are well coached.

"Shawn takes up a lot of room in the paint and he knows how to score but if we control the rebounds offensively and defensively we will be okay."