Cam Johnson’s shooting funk wasn’t a case of the yips. It was a waste of his dips.
“(There) was a little bit of a momentum transfer that I was working on the last couple days,” the Nuggets forward explained to me after a 19-point breakout night against the Chicago Bulls. “Momentum transfer and just a little bit more of a dip. Kind of streamlining it, and making it feel more smooth to take a little bit off my arms.
“When you become an ‘arm’ shooter, it’s tough. You want the whole body involved. So that was what I was working on, was that whole body involvement — kind of that dip to flow, dip to flow, alignment, dip to flow.”
Dip to flow. Get low. Set yourself, rise, and extend.
The most consistent shooters let their feet feed the hands. Not the other way around. Johnson drained 5 of 7 3-point attempts Monday. Before he got hip to the dip, the Nuggets wing had made just eight of his previous 38 from beyond the arc. You know how hard it is to stay out of your own head when Nikola Jokic keeps serving open looks on a silver platter?
“While (my shots) weren’t going down early, they also weren’t feeling right,” Johnson said of a rough opening three weeks in Nuggets blue.
“I saw a couple of them felt good early, and those ones don’t go down, and then you get a little skewed. So (I was) just getting back to basics, letting it feel good. (Monday), I squeaked a couple in.”
With Christian Braun out these next few weeks, the Nuggets (10-3) could use every squeak. They head to New Orleans on Wednesday for a two-game southern road swing coming off their first home loss of the season. On a bittersweet night that saw Denver whiff on 50/50 balls and fail to close out on Chicago shooters, Johnson’s rise felt like a palate-cleanser.
“Cam took the same shots that everyone’s been saying to Cam, ‘You know, what’s going on with Cam?’” Nuggets coach David Adelman reflected. “It’s like, well, it’s going to happen. Cam’s going to make shots. That’s the bottom line.
“That’s (why) we’ve been patient with this. It was really, really good to see … Hopefully that’s just kind of a launching pad for Cam … I just think the biggest thing for Cam is just to continue to take what’s there.”
And to not press when it isn’t. Johnson also knows he’ll have to be more consistent, more reliable, than the form of the previous three weeks. The veteran’s 8.2 points per game and 28.9% conversion rate on 3s comprise easily the slowest start to an opening 12 appearances over his seven seasons as a pro.
“It’s self-talk, on one hand, where you just have to have the confidence in yourself that you’ve been doing this (and) you’ll get back to doing it,” Johnson said. “Unless God said I’m done shooting the basketball, then it’ll come back.”
Let’s make a couple of things clear. First, Johnson isn’t Michael Porter Jr., the man he was dealt for. That’s OK. If this roster is healthy, he doesn’t have to be.
Second, when grading the MPJ trade, take the long view and the high road. The “win” in acquiring Johnson for MPJ and a first-round pick in 2032 wasn’t in trying to get one over on the Nets. MPJ’s hot start (24.1 points per game as of Monday night), on the surface, makes one move, in isolation, look like a fleece job by Brooklyn.
Don’t buy the clickbait. Take out the isolation. The “win” was getting MPJ’s contract and $38.3 million cap hit this season off the books. Because doing that opened up the salary space for Jonathan Wallace and Ben Tenzer to go snap up Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown and Jonas Valanciunas.
It was never MPJ plus a pick for Cam. It was MPJ plus a pick for Cam plus a bench — Brucey B, Tim, Jonas — that could run with the Thunder’s. Would you rather have MPJ as a fourth option in the offense, combined with last year’s bench? Or the top nine Nuggets — with a healthy Braun — in Adelman’s rotation this fall?
If Porter becomes an All-Star, good for him. MPJ leads the Nets in points, shots taken and treys taken. He went from supporting player on a title-winner here to the focal point of a crapola offense in the Big Apple. The Nets were 2-11 as of Tuesday morning. See Grant, Jerami. Godspeed.
Johnson’s now a supporting player on a 10-3 team with champagne history and caviar dreams. One he desperately wants to give more support to. There’s no show without the flow.
“I’ve worked on this a lot in my life,” Johnson said. “The only thing is, the problems are never the same. You always have to have a bunch in your bag to go to, to figure out why you’re missing, and how to fix it.
“I’ve had some trainers and some people that I’m close with come and help me, just as a separate set of eyes. And it’s one game, man — it could have just as easily been 0 for 7 (Monday). So you’ve got to remember that and try to get back after it and make them in the next game.”
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