The NBA regular season continued, with the Lakers narrowly beating the Timberwolves and Lakers starting forward Stanley Johnson doing a sluggish job. In the whole game, he played 21 minutes, 0 of 3, scored 1 point on the free throw, and the better thing was that he contributed 3 steals.
This is Johnson's fifth game with the Lakers and his 3rd start. In five games, he averaged 25.2 minutes per game, averaging 6.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.2 steals per game, shooting 45.8% from the field and 25% from three-point range.
After joining the Lakers on a difficult special contract, Johnson can be said to have gained a lot of opportunities, whether from the starting treatment or playing time, Johnson can quickly get so many opportunities in a team like the Lakers, which is very surprising, but this can also show that the Lakers recognize him, especially the recognition of his defensive ability.
Johnson's offensive ability is not good, his shooting ability is not outstanding, and the performance of the three-pointer can be said to be somewhat bad. But the reason why he can play the starter is still due to his defense and hard work.
This 2015 No. 8 show, when he entered the NBA that year, one of his templates was Leonard. At that time, his strong body and excellent defensive ability were widely praised, unfortunately, his development in the NBA was not smooth, which led to him only turning 25 this year, and he has been in three teams for the past five seasons. And this summer, he went unnoticed and eventually had to join the Bulls on a short ten-day contract.
Johnson failed to represent the Bulls in the game because of the triggering of the health and safety agreement, and the contract expired. After that, the Lakers triggered a health and safety agreement with multiple people, and the use of people was stretched, and Johnson was given the opportunity to join the Lakers and get a lot of playing time.
At the Lakers, Johnson's performances in the first few games were actually OK, and in every game, he scored at least 7 points. In the first game against harden-led Nets (Durant and Irving did not play), Johnson had 28 minutes of playing time and scored seven points. In the second game against the Rockets, he was big but had 9 points. In game three against the Grizzlies, he scored seven points. In the last big win over the Blazers, he scored 10 points.
Therefore, the super sluggish performance with the Timberwolves is actually the lowest fan of Johnson's game for the Lakers so far.
But Johnson wants to gain the trust of the Lakers, get a second ten-day short contract and even stay until the end of the season, and obviously need to have a better performance. Not only does he have to continue to be tough on the defensive end, but he also needs to avoid too many ups and downs on the offensive end, and he needs to try to avoid a game like the 1-point game with the Timberwolves. Only then can he open up more opportunities for his career again.