In the first quarter of the Spurs’ game against the Jazz, Keldon Johnson was benched for fouling Lauri Markkanen during a three-point attempt. Assistant coach Mitch Johnson explained the decision to “change the messaging” on accountability after the game, citing “repetitive mistakes” as the cause.
It would be naive to expect the coaching staff to outline exactly why that play was the one that broke the camel’s back and resulted in the benching. It would also be naive to expect fans not to want to figure out why. So let’s take a look and try to solve the puzzle.
Nothing Johnson did on offense should have impacted the decision
First off, a look at the offense. Sometimes a player might be pulled for a bad defensive possession but in reality, their performance on the other end also played a part in that decision. That almost surely wasn’t the case here.
Keldon touched the ball only four times and he passed it on every single occasion. He spent his entire time on the weak side, as the team had Victor Wembanyama, Devin Vassell and occasionally Jeremy Sochan running the offense. Johnson seemed to be in the right place to maximize the spacing and when he was open, he raised his arms asking for the ball. He was expected to let others get shots and did it. He made little to no impact on offense, except for providing spacing, which was his job. The Spurs were terrible on that end during the stretch he was on the floor, but not because of Johnson.
We can determine that for every 3.77 attempts that Jonson contests, he commits a shooting foul by using disputed shot data from NBA.com/stats. Close player Cedi Osman fouls once every 3.79 games. Every 4.43 shots, Julian Champagnie commits a foul. Out of every six shots he contests, Sochan commits one. Like Johnson is meant to be, Devin Vassell is a guard who is also a core player; for every 5.48 shots he contests, he commits one shooting foul. The Spurs detest fouling, and Johnson commits fouls frequently when he is actively involved in defensive plays. That being said, there is some subtlety to this situation because Johnson frequently guards closer to the rim than some of his colleagues.
Anybody who reviews previous games will discover more dubious plays. During the media day, Gregg Popovich stated that Johnson hasn’t performed well defensively this year, and Vassell needs to step up as well. It is not unexpected that he has struggled since the Spurs assigned him the responsibility of guarding stars. He won’t be able to be stopped. However, he must perform the small tasks flawlessly and refrain from fouling, and he has also struggled with that.
The good news is that these issues are solvable if the inattention and fouling are the real causes of the benching. Perhaps Johnson needed this punishment to make him realize that he needs to strengthen his defense and will begin to show improvement in that area.
