Johnson, Raptors clear air over minutes beef

Coach Casey assures issue ‘not a big deal,’ after forward tweets he’s ‘under-utilized’

James Johnson was in a long conversation with Raptors assistant general manager Jeff Weltman on Friday morning when the media was ushered into practice, one of a series of chats between management, coaches and the seemingly disgruntled forward over the previous 30 hours or so.

Johnson didn’t talk with reporters after that conversation and neither did anyone from management, but coach Dwane Casey said Johnson’s mid-week Twitter description of himself as “under-utilized” has been dealt with internally and the matter has been put to rest.

“In today’s NBA, you’re not surprised by anything,” Casey said. “It’s not a big deal, he tweeted something he probably shouldn’t have tweeted. We talked to James and handled it internally. Everybody understands their role and what his job is. We’ll move on.”

Johnson stepped back from his initial tweet hours later on Thursday, but the central issue is there just isn’t a lot of playing time available to him. He is the third power forward behind Luis Scola and Patrick Patterson and he is the third centre behind Jonas Valanciunas and Bismack Biyombo. And even with Valanciunas out for up to six weeks, Casey is quite content to move Scola to the middle when he has to.

And it’s unlikely the role will change.

“His role is what it is right now,” Casey said. “DC (DeMarre Carroll) has done an excellent job at the three. Pat (Patterson) and Luis are doing an excellent job at the four.

“That’s been explained to James numerous times. He’s a valuable piece of what we do, he’s an excellent utility guy, he can play multiple positions. But right now he’s behind at those multiple positions.”

With that now behind them, the

“It’s not a rivalry, it’s just a team that swept us in the playoffs last year.” KYLE LOWRY ON THE WIZARDS

Raptors are downplaying a game Saturday in Washington, their first real meeting with the Wizards since Toronto’s four-game capitulation in last spring’s playoffs.

“It’s not a rivalry, it’s just a team that swept us in the playoffs last year,” Kyle Lowry said. “Yeah, they swept us, but at the end of the day, it’s a new season, they’re a different team, we’re a different team.”

There are stark contrasts in the teams this season compared to last April. The Wizards, who used to be a somewhat plodding half-court team, are playing far faster (fourth in the league in “pace” at 101.83 possessions per game, Toronto is 24th at 96.94) while the Raptors are a vastly improved defensive team, ranked in the top 10 going into the game.