Johnson making most of chances
Forward adds 14 points, helps Heat take down Thunder Monday.
James Johnson never stopped competing, even while going more than two weeks without seeing action for the Miami Heat.
He instead channeled his inner Malcolm Brogdon, Nicolas Batum and anyone else that coach Erik Spoelstra needed him to emulate with the scout team.
“Behind the scenes,” teammate Josh Richardson said, “he was doing a great job of getting the guys ready.”
And then in Sunday’s victory over Batum and the Charlotte Hornets, Johnson finally got his chance to be himself, his first action since Feb. 21 against the Philadelphia 76ers, having first missed four games with a shoulder sprain and then the next seven when Spoelstra went in a different direction with his rotation.
“Playing with him for a couple of years already, you know what kind of guy he is,” Richardson said. “He’s a super, ultra-competitive player, so I know he wants to be out there.”
There are, of course, no givens with a rotation that spun to its 24th lineup of the season Sunday, before the Heat took flight for Monday night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
Earlier this season, it was Wayne Ellington who was odd man out. Then there were brief cameo appearances for Udonis Haslem before he was again an outsider.
That had Johnson making no assumptions of what might come next, as the Heat opened their four-game trip.
“You’ve just got to stay ready,” Johnson said. “Like I’m saying, staying in tune to the game, stay locked in to the details of what’s going on, and then if you’re number gets called, you already have a feeling of what’s going on in the
game.”
It has been a unique season for the Heat’s tri-captains, with Goran Dragic, the third of those tri-captains, along with Johnson and Haslem, having returned from knee surgery in what has turned into an extended run as a reserve.
Through it all, Spoelstra said Johnson gave him reason for hope for the needed lockdown defensive effort in Sunday’s victory.
“He’s been able to stay ready,” Spoelstra said. “It’s not easy. That’s why I do have great empathy, for a player that was in the rotation and then things had changed. But he worked.
“There was a practice a couple of days ago, a few days ago, that I texted him afterward. I really appreciated the work that he was putting in behind the scenes, when no one was watching. And that doesn’t guarantee anything. He didn’t play the next game. But you notice these things.”
Johnson said with the Heat hovering in playoff position that it was no time to make waves.
“And if you don’t like that, you’re just a hater, as simple as that,” he said. “I really love these guys. I’m ready to go to war with these guys any day.”
Johnson said he figured the wear of the season would create an opening, as it did with the bruised right thigh that kept Justise Winslow out Sunday against the Hornets and Monday against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“I knew we had guys down and a lot of guys playing with their B, C, D game that were banged up,” he said. “And then, you know, always staying ready. That’s it. As long as my name was called, I felt good, I felt conditioned.”
Good, for now: Dragic said he, too, appreciates this is no time to make waves, as he continues in his reserve role.
“At this time, it just is what it is,” he said. “I’m a competitive guy, so I want to play as much as possible. But what’s best for the team. I told that to coach. I told that to the players. We’ll see.
“I’m still not 100 percent after the injuries, so at this time I’m fine.”