Johnson on uneven season: ‘It’s like a fog’

DENVER James Johnson insists that this has become more mental than physical, the Miami Heat forward now more concerned about getting his mind right than the remaining steps in his recovery from May surgery for a sports hernia.

“Some games, it feels like no one can stop me in this league,” he said amid the three-game losing streak the Heat will take into Wednesday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center. “And then some games it’s just like I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s like a fog. I’ve just got to break that.

“But body-wise and everything else, I’m feeling strong and I’m feeling more healthy.”

The results remain uneven, with some nights better than others, including his 14 points, six rebounds and three blocked shots in Monday’s 103-87 loss to the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center.

“I’ve got to get out of my own way,” he said, citing a self-help manual he is utilizing for the process, “which is stay positive and bring positive energy into my own mentality and just try to play as hard as I can every game and bring that force, that relentlessness every game.”

It has been four games since Johnson has been moved to the bench by coach Erik Spoelstra, with consistency still lacking, certainly nothing like the boost he provided in the 30-11 finish to 2016-17, before last season’s injurylimited productivity.

“We have so much power on this team that sometimes it looks like I’m laying in the weeds or I’m not doing nothing,” he said. “But we’ve really got a good team. We’ve just got to vibe with each other a little more and start closing these games out.”

Waiters, too: Then there is guard Dion Waiters, who is working back from last month’s return from last season’s ankle surgery. His productivity, too, has been patchy. But unlike Johnson, he said the hurdle is physical, at least from a conditioning standpoint.

“I mean, at the end of the day, it’s a process for me,” he said, coming off Monday’s 11-point, six-assist performance in Denver. “And no matter how much I want it, it’s a process every day. I’ve got to grind every day.”

There are no head games here, just, quite literally, having to gut it out.

“My game is coming,” he said. “My body is not where I wanted it, though. My game is coming there, but I’m still not moving how I want to, as I’d like.

“So even though it’s hard during the season, I still get up and go ride the bike before shootaround and stuff like that, trying to get to it.”

Waiters said through playing time he is appreciating how much work remains.

“I’m making he said. steps forward,” “When I first got back, it was not knowing what was going on. When you’re playing, you get a clear-eye view, you know what it is, you know what you’ve got to do to sustain it.”

End game: Guard Dwyane Wade said he is not stressing that his final season could come without a playoff berth, having taken no preconceived notions into his 16th NBA season.

“If I could come into the season and say the record that I would want, then I would get a record that would put us in the playoffs,” he said. “You’ve got to play the game.

“At the end of the season it all pans out, whatever it is, it is, and then you figure it out from there.”

He said it’s not is if teammates aren’t providing the effort alongside.

“Guys are playing their heart out,” he said. “We, unfortunately, are not getting the games that we would like to. But it’s part of the NBA, part of the season. It’s a tough part of the schedule.”