Joe Johnson rocks his dribble back and forth, sizes up his defender and looks for the small opening he needs to score.
It's a familiar sight for the Hawks guard, a scenario that's been good throughout a career that's included six consecutive selections to the All-Star game. Johnson uses his ball-handling skills, size and strength to create shots. He's one of the best in the league at making them, even when the defense is tight.
But then the playoffs arrive. Opponents sharpen their scouting report and the defensive pressure intensifies. Atlanta's offense bogs down as Johnson's deliberate, one-on-one play leads to low-percentage shots under pressure or even turnovers.
That's what happened Sunday during Game 1 Atlanta's first-round Eastern Conference playoff series with Boston. The Hawks won 83-74 because of rugged defense, good rebounding and some timely offense from forward Josh Smith and guard Jeff Teague.
But the offense slowed down at times when Johnson had the ball, something he intends to change for Game 2.
“Probably just go a little quicker,” Johnson said Monday. “Try to get a lot of easy baskets in transition. Don't stop and stand and hold the ball as much. Because they are the best defensive team in the league, [we can't] give them a chance to load up.”
Making that up-tempo adjustment should help Johnson recover from a miserable offensive performance in Game 1. Johnson scored 11 points, missed 12 of 15 shots and had four turnovers in 38 ragged minutes.
The Hawks have sometimes struggled to strike a balance between Johnson's strengths as an isolation player who dominates the ball and Larry Drew's egalitarian motion sets. But Johnson said it's not a tough adjustment.
“It's not, because I feel like I can do both,” he said. “It's not going to bother me at all. Whether it's playing off Jeff or playing off Josh or playing off both of those guys, it doesn't matter to me.”
Johnson salvaged an otherwise awful offensive night by making 5 of 8 free-throw attempts. His scoring line would have been much better if he'd made open jump shots at his usual rate.
A review of the game video showed that subjectively, six of Johnson's 12 misses were open jump shots. Another three misses were challenged but were the kind of shots Johnson typically makes.
Teague said Johnson's teammates also need to draw help defenders away from Johnson so he can work against one Celtic at a time.
“They were crowding up on him and bumping him a lot,” Teague said. “Sometimes we have just got to cut more and get more player movement. If we do that, he will get more openings to make his moves.”
Johnson was a very efficient scorer when working in isolation during the regular season. According to Synergy Sports Technology, he ranked 33rd in the league in scoring efficiency on isolation plays.
Drew said he will always rely on Johnson's gifts as a one-on-one scorer.
“That's who he is,” Drew said. “That's the strength of his game. He's so good off the dribble and he's strong off the dribble. I never want to take that away because he is very good at it.
“And the other thing with him, which I don't think he gets enough credit for, [is] even out of double teams he makes the right plays. The more plays he makes like that, the more it's going to open other people up.”
Johnson had five assists in Game 1. Like with his scoring, he tends to be a more effective passer against double teams when he quickly makes a decision on what to do with the ball.
That's how the offense flowed in the first quarter of Game 1, when Johnson had four of the team's seven assists as the Hawks ran out to a 31-18 lead. Drew said that as Boston's defense tightened, the Hawks stopped moving the ball to the opposite side of the court to get defenders scrambling.
“We will make adjustments and I will make adjustments and see what I can do to be more effective,” Johnson said.
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