High-flying Forest secured all three points at the City Ground through Chris Wood's penalty early in the second half.
The victory for the home side came after two straight defeats to Arsenal (3-0 away) and Newcastle (3-1 at home).
READ MORE: Stuart Watson's verdict on defeat at Forest
And the Forest boss told the BBC: "The main goal was to bounce back from the two previous games.
"I still believe it has to be like that to go in the game and fight, but organised. There is a balance but the basics for us is not the clean sheet, it is the attitude.
"They are a tough team, we knew that. We started well and they countered the attack. A very tough team. Kieran (McKenna) is doing a great job and they put us against the ropes at the end."
Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo praised Town's Kieran McKennaForest boss Nuno Espirito Santo praised Town's Kieran McKenna (Image: PA) Speaking to the Nottingham Post, he added: “It was very hard-earned. We say this over and over again, but I truly believe as a team, as a squad and as a club, our mindset should be that we have to be very hard to beat.
“We spoke about that during the week and about going back to basics. The basics are simple, let’s be solid. And solid is being aggressive, sticking to your task and helping your teammates. Defensively, we were ok.”
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Espirito Santo concluded: “All the back line did ok. It wasn’t only the defence, the midfield were aggressive. But when we changed to a back three, we allowed (Ipswich) too much and dropped too much.
“They didn’t create too many situations but the key point at that moment is we didn’t take advantage of the space and we didn’t counterattack. That is one thing we have to assess.
“Especially in the last moments of the game, anything can happen. Anything can happen if you don’t close the game down. That was the only thing that got me worried, because there was space and we didn’t break them. We didn’t go out with our speed, so we have to look at that.
“I give a lot of credit to Ipswich, but I didn’t see Matz (Sels) doing a lot of things. That represents how good the boys were in front of him.”