Alex Neil admitted the result was more important than Millwall's performance after they emerged with a 3-1 victory away to promotion rivals Hull.
The Lions were under pressure for long spells of the game after Jake Cooper's early goal was cancelled out by Joe Gelhardt.
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But they triumphed after substitute Mihailo Ivanovic – on to replace the injured Alfie Doughty – tapped in a Femi Azeez cross and Josh Coburn added a third goal on the break.
"I'm not going to say they played well or I was happy with the performance because I wasn't," Neil told BBC Radio London. "But at this stage of the season, it's about winning matches.
"Alfie (Doughty) gets injured so we had to take him off. I think at that point, the way the game was going, Hull were going to win it so I had to make a call.
"I've got no defenders left but what I can do is try and fix the top end of the pitch and make it a bit more of a threat so if we do get the chance to break, we've got a better opportunity to score the next goal.
"Thankfully that's what happened and it helped us win the game. We can certainly play better than we did but I'm delighted for the lads and delighted for the fans that travelled up."