Cameron Johnson is having the best season of his six-year career, delivering performances that not only help the Brooklyn Nets win games but might also boost his trade value.
With rumors surrounding Johnson’s future, his next chance to shine comes Saturday night when the Nets take on the Utah Jazz, the second-worst team in the Western Conference.
Johnson is averaging 19.2 points per game, shooting 48.9 percent from the field and 43.1 percent from beyond the arc. These stats would all be career highs. He has scored 20 or more points in five of his last six games, with an average of 24.2 points on 49.4 percent shooting during that stretch. He has been shooting 50.9 percent in his last 21 games.
Johnson scored 22 points in Brooklyn’s 130-101 home loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday, which came after Dennis Schroder was traded to the Golden State Warriors for three second-round picks.
He then followed up with a 33-point performance in a 101-94 win over the Toronto Raptors on Thursday. In that game, Johnson’s effort stood out as the only player on the team to score more than 12 points while the Nets shot just 40.2 percent, their third-lowest mark of the season.
“Just really trying to win the game is really what it comes down to,” Johnson said after also grabbing 10 rebounds and dishing out six assists. “We didn’t have a good feeling after that Cleveland game, so we wanted to make sure we came out here and got a dub. To get a win like this (is big).”
However, the Nets have lost six of their last eight games.
The Jazz, with a 6-20 record, currently have better lottery odds than the 11-16 Nets, as they are among the worst teams in the NBA along with the Washington Wizards and New Orleans Pelicans.
Utah started the season with six straight losses and is now 6-14, looking for back-to-back wins for the first time since April 11-12 of last season.
After giving up 144 points in a 37-point loss to the Clippers in Los Angeles on Monday, the Jazz managed to win 126-119 on the road against the Detroit Pistons on Thursday. That victory brought their record to 5-6 when allowing fewer than 120 points.
However, the win wasn’t as comfortable as coach Will Hardy would have liked. The Jazz had a 48-19 lead over Detroit after the first quarter but ended up making the game closer by committing 24 turnovers in the final three quarters, marking their 10th game this season with 20 or more turnovers. Utah’s win also saw Jordan Clarkson ejected for shoving Paul Reed in the third quarter.
“It was super physical, chippy, ugly, nasty,” Hardy said. “There’s turnovers, there’s fouls, there’s fights, there’s a level of tension in the game and in the arena that we really haven’t seen this year.”
Collin Sexton scored a season-high 30 points, ending a streak of seven games where he scored under 20. The Jazz are also getting stronger performances from second-year guard Keyonte George, who has been averaging 18.1 points over his past seven games and scored 28 in Detroit.
