Celtics let Big Dog eat
Johnson shows range during 23-point stunner
Perhaps the best part about Amir Johnson’s nickname is that, as best we can tell, he gave it to himself. And he loves to use it. When a media member approaches, it’s better than even odds Amir will greet him or her graciously.
“Y’all need answers from the Big Dog?”
It ain’t quite Rickey Henderson territory, but Amir Johnson is always willing to go third mammal.
And last night he was a beast, a 3-point-raining beast. He went for 23 points, making 9-of-11 shots overall and all four treys as the Celts got a big lead, gave it up and hung on for a 107-100 victory against the Chicago Bulls.
In the third quarter, Johnson simply went off his leash.
With Al Horford (concussion) home and Jae Crowder out for the night after 10 points and a sprained left ankle late in the first half, the Celtics needed help. So Brad Stevens let the dog out. A minute and a half into the period, Johnson took a Marcus Smart pass and drilled a 3-pointer. A minute later, he rebounded his own miss and scored, getting the Celts back ahead by 10.
Then Amir Johnson went full Steph Curry on Chicago.
There was a long trey at 8:41, another at 5:44 and, after his second steal of the period, a 24-foot step-back, heat-check trifecta that might have stunned the partisan Dog-watchers even more than it did the Bulls.
“It’s one of those things,” teammate Tyler Zeller said. “You know, he shoots the first one, and you’re like, ‘ Alright, he made it.’ But holy smokes. And then he made the third one and I’m like, ‘Alright, this is crazy.’ And then the fourth one he hit was just, I don’t even know where that came from. In the corner, almost stepback into it falling down.
“Hey,” Zeller added, his smile widening to encompass his face west to east, “he’s a shooter. You’ve got to play him as a shooter.”
Later in the frame, Johnson hit the visitors with a driving hook. That gave him 16 points in the quarter, one more than he had in the season’s first three games.
He sat the last two minutes of the third quarter and first 5:40 of the fourth.
But Johnson had the game-winning point, driving on Bobby Portis, getting fouled and hitting the second of two to give the Celts a 101-100 lead with 1:44 left.
With 46 seconds left and the C’s up three, he helped ice it by knocking an Isaiah Thomas miss to Avery Bradley to maintain possession.
“Y’all want to talk to the Big Dog?” Johnson said when asked by Celtics public relations personnel to come to the other side of the dressing room for a group interview.
Indeed, we wanted answers from the Large Canine. Mainly, it was some version of what in hell got into you? This was, after all, the same guy who hit four 3-pointers in his first seven NBA seasons and was 10-for-43 last year.
“I was just feeling good, you know?” said Johnson, who’d scored 15 points total in the season’s first three games. “I made the first one, and my confidence built a little higher. Then I knocked down the fourth one, and I don’t even think I saw the basket. I just kept my followthrough up. It could have been an and-one. I thought it was. I never had a four-point play before.”
There was head-shaking all around.
“Give him credit,” Chicago coach Fred Hoiberg said. “He’s got the confidence to knock them down. His first one, our hands were down on that. We go out and contest that shot, maybe it’s different the rest of the game. ... We knew he was a guy that’s capable of hitting those shots, (but) we just didn’t make that first one tough enough.”
As for Johnson’s surprise that he didn’t see more resistance earlier on, he said, “I don’t think I was on the scouting report for running Amir off the 3-point line, so it was just a good night for me.”
Good self-deprecation by the Dog, but Stevens sees it differently.
“I will say this,” the coach said. “Amir Johnson comes in and shoots after every practice with (assistant coach) Jay Larranaga, and they’ll shoot from spot 3’s. And I think that when you watch Amir do an individual workout, whether it’s in the summer or fall, people would be surprised at how many he makes.”
Last night’s surprise was mainly humorous.
“Whatever he ate or drank last night, whatever he did,” Marcus Smart said, “I want some of it.”
And yes, late last night, Johnson admitted quietly yes, he’s the one who came up with Big Dog.
“That,” he said with a 23-point smile, “was me.”