James Johnson stayed ready and impressed Sunday. Can he get back into Heat’s rotation?
Forward James Johnson had gone 18 consecutive games without getting on the court. So, Johnson was caught off guard when coach Erik Spoelstra called his name midway through the first quarter Sunday.
“When he called my name, I was just as surprised as all of you guys,” Johnson joked to reporters following the Heat’s 122-111 win over the Trail Blazers at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Surprised, yes. Unprepared, no.
With the short-handed Heat playing without Jimmy Butler (lower back soreness) and Justise Winslow (lower back bone bruise), Johnson entered Sunday’s contest alongside guard Goran Dragic with 5:04 remaining in the first quarter as one of the first two players used off the Heat’s bench. Johnson, 32, made his first shot of the game — a three-pointer — 15 seconds later.
When the night was done, Johnson had 12 points, six rebounds and two assists in 22 minutes in his first game action since the Heat’s Nov. 27 loss to the Rockets.
“Just helping the team out when they needed it,” Johnson said, with the Heat (26-10) now idle until the start of its three-game trip Wednesday against the Pacers. “Our best player [Butler] was out and that gave me my opportunity. Just staying ready so I don’t have to get ready.
“We stay ready around here. Big shoutouts to [the Heat strength and conditioning team of Eric Foran and Bill Foran] in there and [assistant coaches Octavio De La Grana, Anthony Carter, Chris Quinn and Malik Allen]. Our player development is no joke around here and when you’re not playing, I feel like you work harder than the guys who are playing games.”
From two-on-two games with teammates to treating practices like real games, Johnson made the most of every opportunity he had to play basketball over the past month to remain ready.
“He’s a good solider and I told him that I’m proud of him because he was going through some tough times when you don’t play,” Heat guard Goran Dragic said of Johnson. “Tonight he demonstrated that he was ready, he was not lost. He gave us some extra energy. With him, it’s a different ball game because he can do a lot of stuff, especially defensively.”
The question is: Did Johnson prove he deserves more playing time moving forward?
A short-handed Heat roster helped create minutes for Johnson on Sunday. And all of Portland’s small lineups — the Trail Blazers has just one player taller than 6-foot-8 available — led Spoelstra to play Johnson over center Kelly Olynyk, who received his first DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) of the season on Sunday.
When the Heat’s roster is back at full health and the opponent has its normal allotment of big men, it’s still unknown if consistent minutes will be there for Johnson. Spoelstra said playing Johnson was an option for the past few weeks, but Spoelstra opted not to make a change to the rotation with the Heat winning games.
“He has put in a lot of time,” Spoelstra said. “He has been ready probably for two or three weeks in my mind where I felt comfortable to be able to put him in. He has played well in practice. But we had played well and our rotation was fairly established, so I didn’t see a need to force anything. And as things happen in this league, if you just stay ready, stay with it, wait for your moment and you’re prepared for it, then you give yourself your best chance to be able to play well. And he has done that.
“We needed it tonight, every bit of those minutes. You see his versatility defensively. We had him on Carmelo [Anthony], we had him on their centers, we had him on [Damian] Lillard there in the fourth quarter. He’s light, he’s fit, he’s moving great.”
Johnson’s versatility on defense could prove to be what pushes him back into the Heat’s rotation. According to NBA.com’s tracking stats, the 6-7, 240-pound Johnson defended Anthony on about nine possessions, Lillard on about eight possessions and Mario Hezonja on about five possessions Sunday.
Sunday marked just the seventh game Johnson has played in this season, as he has not seen the court due to a coach’s decision in 22 games. He’s in the third season of a four-year, $60 million contract he signed with the Heat in the summer of 2017.
All of this comes after a turbulent start to the season, with Johnson away from the team for the first 10 days of training camp and the preseason because he didn’t meet the Heat’s conditioning requirements. He was sent away on the eve of training camp on Sept. 30 and did not return to the team until Oct. 11.
“I think that’s all part of going through a struggle, going through something that reveals who you really are,” Johnson said of not playing much this season. “It reveals your character and how tough you can really be. I don’t think I got outside confidence. I really think I got deep down inside confidence, and I always relied on that my whole life.
“It’s just learning how to love every part and aspect of this basketball game. The ups, the downs, the great seasons, the bad seasons, the injuries. Just learning how to embrace that and love that just gives me purpose.”
Through it all, Johnson insists he has remained positive.
“I’ve been in every situation that this league can offer, honestly,” said Johnson, who has switched teams five times during his NBA career. “I know for sure it can be worse. It can be me sitting on a team with a losing record or sitting on a team that they’re definitely not playing their guys. I’m on a team with great guys, great players that really love winning and really love getting it done. For me sitting on a bench, I’m more of a fan and helping as much as I can as a vet. But nah, it’s easy on this team. Any other team? Yeah, I’m sure it’s tough.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 10:30 AM.
