Joe Johnson wasn’t impressed with LeBron James’ defense against him in the final minutes of the Nets’ 102-96 loss to the Heat in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal Monday night.
“I wasn’t necessarily trying to draw the foul on him,” said Johnson, although James had five fouls while defending him, “but I thought he was aggressive, so I was just trying to use his aggressiveness against him.
“[But] he flopped that last one.”
Johnson, who had 18 points but went just 5-for-15 from the floor — including 0-for-4 in the fourth quarter — twice found himself matched up against James inside the final two minutes. But after James successfully defended Johnson’s fallaway jumper with the score tied at 94 with 1:16 remaining, Johnson tried to make a step-back jumper as James banged into him and fell to the floor. Johnson missed the shot with 40.7 seconds remaining and the Nets trailing 97-94.
“Yeah, it did,” Johnson said, when asked if the flop threw him off. “I should’ve known they wouldn’t have called a foul, but I went into my shot anyway, so I had plenty of time.”
After shooting the lights out from behind the 3-point arc in their Game 3 win, the Nets couldn’t buy a basket from deep in Game 4.
They finished the game 5-for-22 from long range — including 0-for-6 in the fourth quarter — after making a franchise playoff record 15 3-pointers in Game 3.
“We just tried to pay more attention to their 3-ponters, and I think we did a better job doing that,” Dwyane Wade said. “They shot the ball exceptionally well the other night, and tonight they got some looks, but we tried to make it tough on them and hopefully those same looks didn’t go in.”
From the Nets’ standpoint, they weren’t upset with the looks they got from behind the arc, but just couldn’t find a way to knock enough of them down.
“We missed some shots, but again, you have to give them credit,” Deron Williams said. “They won the game and played well, we definitely missed some shots that could have went in, and we definitely didn’t shoot like last game.”