Johnson regaining aggressive style as ankle improves
MIAMI — Tyler Johnson’s game changed as he slowly recovered from an ankle injury suffered a month ago in Chicago. Johnson didn’t have the explosiveness he’s accustomed to, or the lift. The Heat’s energetic guard settled. And his offense suffered.
“I’ve been standing out on the perimeter to try to shoot my way out of it,” Johnson said. “A lot of it I think had to do with my ankle being a little bit sore, maybe not trusting it all the way. I’ve been putting in a lot of work to try and get that pain out and get that explosion back. I just felt like I could not get off the ground as much as I would have liked to.”
Johnson decided he would get to the rim more often on Friday against the Milwaukee Bucks. It worked. Johnson had a team-high 19 points
in Miami’s 91-85 victory, the most points he’s scored since his season-high 31 on Dec. 30 in Orlando.
And better yet, half of Johnson’s 16 shots were within 12 feet, a nice mixture of getting into the paint while continuing to shoot the open jumpers.
“It opens up everything and allows me to get people involved, too, kind of like how Dion (Waiters) would,” Johnson said about how the game changes when he’s not settling for outside shots. his four years, 69.7 percent of
“Dion was constantly attack- his shots were twos. ing and putting pressure on the “We can have him in a betbasket. He kind of opened things ter place and part of that is my up for a lot of people. I kind of job, part of that is the team trytook it upon myself (Friday) to ing to get him to his strengths try to be a little bit more aggres- and part of that is Tyler taking sive to try and get myself going more responsibility to find the (and) to try and open things up.” right times to be aggressive and
Johnson was averaging 7.7 to read the game,” coach Erik points and shooting .322 in the Spoelstra said prior to Miami’s seven games since returning loss to Houston on Wednesday. from the injury. And nearly 60 “Usually with Tyler, compe- percent of his shots were 3-pointtition is what takes him to a difers. For the year, his breakdown ferent level. When he’s really is 52.2 percent of his shots being competing and he’s around the twos and 47.8 percent threes. ball defensively, things tend to Last season, easily his best in change for him in a positive way on the offensive end. I’d like to see him flying around making a bunch of winning defensive plays and see what happens from there.”
Johnson checked that box, too, as did most of his teammates who held the Bucks to 37.8 percent shooting in the second half. Johnson’s plus-minus was a game-best plus-19.
As for the ankle injury, which occurred Jan. 15 when Chicago’s Robin Lopez landed on the back of his left foot and forced Johnson to miss five games, Johnson said “it’s getting closer” to 100 percent.