Despite the drop-off from 3, Keldon Johnson and the Spurs are making the grind work

San Antonio's lead man has had a difficult 25 games from the perimeter, but along with his teammates and coaching staff, he's learning the art of playing inside-out.

Through the first 14 games of his 2022-23 season, Keldon Johnson was playing a brand of basketball different from anything we’d seen from him before.

The 21 pounds he’d lost over the offseason revealed a sleeker, quicker, more agile version of the previous model, the 3-point shot that came around last season had blossomed even more dramatically, and the battering-ram style of game he brought with him into the league had developed into something more versatile. The new Keldon was already outperforming the brand new $80-million extension he’d signed over the summer, and the Spurs’ quick commitment to him following the Dejounte Murray trade was immediately paying major dividends.

Then came the wall. Out of nowhere, the shot just stopped working, and the snowball started rolling downhill. As Johnson reverted back to the mechanical habits of his old shooting form, he lost his touch, and along with it the respect of the defense on the perimeter. They began to sag off again, knowing full well the rim attacks were coming. The lanes closed, the alleyways were fewer and farther in between, and the void of space surrounding him above the 3-point line seemed to taunt him.

Johnson shot better than 42 percent from the outside during those first 14 games, and in the 25 games since, he’s managed just 26.8 percent. It has been a long, difficult stretch.

But to the credit of all involved — Johnson, his teammates and the coaching staff — they’ve found more and more ways to get him going, and it all started with reaching back to his roots. In early December Brett Brown talked about using these struggles from the perimeter as a way to “try to help him determine what his game is.” Johnson is more than just a 3-point chucker, and the Spurs knew they had to help him realize that.

So they started going back to a little bully-ball, allowing him to use his strength against smaller players on the block. They continued to find ways to get him the ball on the move in space as a trailer in transition, and oftentimes even in half-court sets. (They’ve got some fun little wrinkles, like pulling him back near mid-court off the ball in the middle of a play before turning him loose, passing it to him on the run downhill and letting him flow right into a pick at the top of the key.)

The Spurs love to put him in attack mode against a shifting defense by swinging the ball around the perimeter to the opposition’s weak side and letting him work. They’ve slowly but surely gone away from utilizing him as a pick-and-roll ball-handler in favor of some of their other guards (and sometimes Jeremy Sochan), but they still love to set a high screen for him to get him moving downhill when the defense is pressuring up the floor. And they work him through dribble-handoff situations often, particularly when the defense is playing straight man without switching.

But over the last several weeks, Johnson has really begun to excel as a cutter and coming off screens away from the ball. Getting that extra bit of space before he even receives the pass has given him chances to catch, react and go as his defender is still recovering, and his teammates are finding him with great timing.

“It’s just knowing what he likes. He likes his post-ups, he likes trying to find switches and mismatches, getting downhill to his right hand — Pop does a good job of, in the flow of the game if he hasn’t gotten one in a minute, he’ll call a play (for Johnson),” Josh Richardson said. “Or when we’re out there and we see he’s having a tough time, we’ll try and get him in a good spot. But he’s done a good job of just trying to stay positive the whole year and staying aggressive because that’s what the team needs from him.”

A lot of it is simple, as much of San Antonio’s read-and-react system can be. Gregg Popovich has always utilized his players’ strengths by putting them in familiar situations over and over and allowing them to make decisions based on feel. Hell, the old Spurs used to run the same stuff on repeat, but everything they did came with options and counters, and counters to counters. It was all designed to put defenses in a decision-making bind at the point of attack, and once they showed their cards it would trigger a reaction from the offense that sent everything else in motion. From there it was just basketball.

But this team doesn’t have Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili or Tim Duncan, or any of the other Beautiful Game Spurs, for that matter. Simplicity is key as this group learns to play off one another, and for Johnson that means getting in position to take advantage of his strengths. Don’t waste time, “.5” offense, just make the read and go.

In the first sequence below, he rejects the pin-down from Richardson and flares out to receive the pass in space after Yuta Watanabe tries to shoot the gap on the screen, then takes advantage of his strength to power through his off-balance defender. Two possessions later, the Nets slid the stronger, more physical T.J. Warren over to guard Johnson. So he utilized a little bump from Zach Collins near the free-throw line to clear out to the weak side with the defender on his hip before immediately getting to that right hand, blowing past Warren, beating Markieff Morris to the low spot and drawing the foul.

The Spurs love the quick-hitter stuff, especially when it comes to getting the ball to Johnson on the move. For a team that doesn’t have a ton of offensive firepower, getting work done early in the shot clock while the defense is still moving makes things a hell of a lot easier. But that doesn’t mean San Antonio is going to slow things down when the opposition is set.

In the next sequence, San Antonio got a little tricky with its personnel and put a set Brooklyn defense in a bind from the start. “Chicago” action typically involves a guard dumping the ball to a big man at the elbow, then running across his face to set a pin-down screen for a teammate on the wing (typically another perimeter player), who then flows into a dribble-handoff with the big man on the ball. But in this example, the Spurs used Poeltl — decidedly not a guard — to initiate the action and Sochan to execute the handoff.

This was great for a number of reasons. First, with Ben Simmons defending Poeltl and Nic Claxton guarding Sochan, San Antonio pulled Brooklyn’s two best interior defenders away from the basket. And once Johnson received the flip, all he had to do was get by Claxton, whose last-second swipe at the ball left him leaning forward and took him out of the play immediately.

Second, with Richardson setting the pin-down for Sochan before both he and Tre Jones cleared out to the corners, the Nets had to honor two capable shooters on the perimeter. Had the Spurs used a more traditional personnel grouping to run “Chicago,” it would’ve likely been Sochan spacing to the perimeter or short baseline instead of Jones, which would’ve allowed Claxton to stay home near the rim. But that’s not how it went, and the seas parted for Johnson once he turned the corner. Seth Curry doesn’t make enough money to step over and meet Keldon at the rim, and he made a wise business decision.

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As Johnson has struggled from beyond the arc, he’s been forced to refine his inside game as best he can. And, despite defenses feeling less threatened by his deep ball these days, there’s been some noticeable progress. His shooting percentage at the rim has jumped from 56 percent in those first 14 games of the season to 60 percent in these last 25 games, and he’s really beginning to figure out how to draw fouls on top of it. Johnson has taken at least 12 shots from the line in three of his last six games, and his .302 free-throw rate (number of free throws attempted per field-goal attempt) is nearly 31 percent higher this season than it was last year.

Despite frequently being faced with stacked boxes, Johnson is still shooting 48 percent from inside the arc, and when he’s at the line he’s shooting a career high 78 percent (I’m not counting the limited 17-game sample size that was his rookie season). It’s been an arduous process, but if things ever begin to open up again from the perimeter, the grind could end up being beneficial in the long run. Until then, he’s going to have to rely on his teammates to put the ball in his hands in advantageous positions and stay on the attack.

“My teammates and coaches know it best. I’m with my teammates every day … so they know — in rhythm, good shots, drive-and-kicks, cuts to the basket, and just putting me in good situations,” he said. “Every (year) I just try to add a little to my game. Getting to the free-throw line and getting some easy baskets, because I get downhill, I play physical, I hit the floor a lot, and it’s just good seeing that pay off with some easy ones at the line.”

And if you watch closely on Friday night, you may see glimpses of his early season mechanics starting to come back. The shots haven’t fallen yet, but the stiff-looking fade, the one leg flying out and the subsequent moonball seem to have been corrected to some extent. He’s stepping into his shot again and releasing the ball out in front, looking much more in rhythm with a quick release.

Only time will tell if it’s real, but Johnson and the Spurs sure hope it is. For all the good stuff that’s been going on — setting a new career high with 36 points on Tuesday wasn’t too shabby — that 3-point shot is the key to raising the ceiling and realizing his full potential. Keldon might be up for the grind of playing inside-out, but getting back to that early season level would make everything a whole hell of a lot easier.

Photo: Bally Sports Southwest
Video: NBA