Roth's urging lights fire for DJ's spark

Scott Roth continued to push for David Johnson to be more aggressive on his return with the Tasmania JackJumpers and it all came to fruition as he turned match winner in the space of three minutes in Cairns.

Johnson missed two months with a calf injury after playing the first two games of the NBL season with the JackJumpers. It was slow going in his opening three matches back with him having 28 points across 80 minutes with just 29 shot attempts.

He then had just two points with four minutes to go against the Taipans before he turned it on spectacularly with 11 points in three and-a-half minutes including two three-point bombs, and competing a three-point play on a strong attack to the basket.

It was exactly the type of performance coach Roth knew he was capable of and has been trying to pull out of him since he returned from the calf injury.

"I've pushed him relentlessly in the last few weeks once he got back healthy and he's had a hard road to sit there and watch for eight and nine weeks before getting his time to go play," Roth said.

"We need him and he's an impact player, and super, super skilled who can do a lot of things for us and tonight was a very good sign of what he's capable of doing."

Saturday's game was on the line with four minutes to play and Tasmania only clinging to a two-point advantage but that's when Roth laid it down clearly to Johnson that it was time for him to stop being unselfish.

Johnson had still been doing all the right team things and had been solid defensively, but he hadn’t been looking to score. Roth wanted that to change and it worked spectacularly with those 11 points in less than four minutes.

"I just told him basically to keep your eyes on the rim and to stop passing the ball as much," Roth said.

"I want him to keep his eyes on the rim because he's here to shoot the ball and score for us, and he's quite unselfish but I wanted to make sure that he kept his eyes on the rim and in that last three minutes things opened up, and he took the shots he should have took which is a very good sign for us."

Johnson didn’t really want to go into details of what Roth was telling him late in the game, but he did get the message and will hope to take confidence out of what he did into the rest of the season now.

 "It does (give me confidence) but it doesn’t really change how I'm going to approach every game," Johnson said.

"This just happened to be my night but I'll continue to prepare the same way that I do and do everything that we do collectively as a group, and I'll be fine and so will we."

Johnson wouldn’t be human if he didn’t admit to feeling good about the part he played in sealing the win with the JackJumpers with those rapid fire 11 points, but the whole reason Roth has tried to get him to be more selfish is because he truly does put the team's best before everything else.

"It feels great but credit to my teammates for everything that I do on the court because it wouldn’t be possible without them," Johnson said.

"Everything that we do it's part of how we play and coach is always ripping me all the time, but my mentality going in is to do whatever I need to do to win the game.

"That might be defensively, offensively and if my shots not falling I know I can always fall on my defence to impact the game.

"If I'm in there for longer stretches where I'm not scoring, that means I have to get after it on defence and just read the game and play off of my teammates.

"They do a really good job of believing in me and giving me confidence, and it's the same thing with the coaching staff so I just stay level headed and will continue to do everything that we do on a daily basis with the right mentality. "

As for the game itself, the JackJumpers beat the Taipans despite shooting just 38 per cent from the field and that was on the back of their 21 offensive rebounds that led to 18 extra shot attempts.

It also came down to their solid defence and Johnson has quickly learned that's one thing the JackJumpers can always bank on.

"We've had some games where we've struggled scoring this season and we've always found a way to gut it out," Johnson said.

"And if we're not shooting the ball, that just means we have to stop the other team from scoring and that's what we do."