"We need Jermain's goals, but we need people to help him score those goals and we need people to help create those goals," the Scot told reporters on Friday.
Defoe has scored 14 of the club's 24 league goals this season.
"We need other people in top form as well, so it's not just about Jermain. They have got to produce and they have got to perform as well."
Sunderland have won just once in their last 11 league games and are glued to the foot of the table, seven points adrift of safety with 10 games remaining this season. Four of those matches are against teams in the current bottom six.
"The games are running out for us and we have to win them now. There can be no half measures and we have to stand up and be counted," Moyes told the club's website. (www.safc.com)
Sunderland have three games in the space of eight days starting with a trip to Watford on Saturday followed by a game against a reinvigorated Leicester City, before hosting fifth-placed Manchester United next Sunday.
(Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru; editing by Richard Lough)
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