San Antonio Spurs forward Keldon Johnson (3) reacts Friday night, March 18, 2022 to a foul call during the first half of the Spurs' 124-91 loss to the Pelicans.

SAN FRANCISCO — Spurs coach Gregg Popovich could see much of this coming.

A rebuilding season of perhaps 25-35 wins. The hoopla surrounding his journey to becoming the NBA record holder for regular-season wins. Point guard Dejounte Murray enjoying a career year after the Spurs bid adieu to several veterans, including leading scorer and playmaker DeMar DeRozan.

Forward Keldon Johnson finishing the season in the top 25 in the league in 3-point efficiency? Cue the vinyl record needle scratch.

“That’s a skill he has developed this year that frankly kind of surprised us all,” Popovich said. “That’s not what we expected him to improve in to that degree.”

Johnson entered his third season best known for his ability to score inside the paint by muscling his way past defenders and punctuating his baskets with his trademark window-rattling screams.

“He’s always been a driver, so we expect that,” Murray said.

What the Spurs didn’t expect was the 22-year-old Virginia native developing into a confident, accurate sharpshooter in a matter of months. He entered Sunday’s game against Golden State ranked 21st in the league in 3-point percentage, hitting 40.7 percent of his shots from beyond the arc on 5.0 attempts per game.

“He is very confident with his 3-pointers,” Spurs center Jakob Poeltl said. “When he gets his 3s off, it doesn’t really matter much if they are contested or not. It’s just like he is staying in his routine, and he is knocking them down. It’s very impressive.”

It’s also a far cry from where Johnson began the season. After connecting on 33.1 percent of his shots from distance last season on 2.6 attempts over 69 games, Johnson missed 15 of his first 17 shots from deep in the first six games in October.

“I was coming off (winning an Olympic gold medal) with Team USA, so confidence was high,” Johnson said. “But an 82-game season is a grind. I started off slow. I wasn’t shooting the ball well. And people talk. But my teammates had my back, my coaches had my back and I just continued to work hard each and every day. ... Shots started to fall.”

In 13 games in November, Johnson shot 54.3 percent from downtown (19 of 35). Proving that was no fluke, he sank 50.0 percent in December (30 of 60) over 14 games.

All the while, Popovich started to see a difference in Johnson’s overall approach on the offensive end.

“He’s learned over time to make better decisions and not play in a crowd so much, realizing where the space is and where the other players are,” the coach said.

With Johnson’s increased efficiency, his teammates started looking for him more even as defenses made adjustments to stop him.

Before the Feb. 10 trade deadline, 55 percent of Johnson’s 3-point shots were uncontested, according to a statistical analysis by ProjectSpurs.com’s Paul Garcia. After Feb. 10, just 31 percent of his shots from distance were of the open variety.

“Teams have to pay more attention to him because he’s our best 3-point shooter,” Popovich said even though Doug McDermott, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury last week, is the statistical leader for players who started the season with the Spurs at 42.2 percent on 5.0 attempts to rank sixth in the league.

Garcia also noted that Johnson’s 3-point attempts increased from 4.4 to 7.0 after the trade deadline, but his accuracy decreased by just 5 percent. He hit 41.2 percent of his 3s in 13 games in January, 37.9 percent in 10 games in February and was shooting 34.4 percent coming into Sunday’s contest through eight games in March with three weeks left in the regular season.

“My teammates put me in spots to be successful, with the kickouts for the 3s or getting in the rotation so I can drive to the basket,” Johnson said. “Without my teammates, none of it would be possible. My teammates put a lot of faith in me, and I trust them as well.”

So how did Johnson go from a bull-in-a-china shop operator in the paint to a more well-rounded offensive player with a deft shooting touch?

The transformation began with a willingness to put in long hours in the gym working on his stroke. He did much of it under the watchful eye of Chip Engelland, the Spurs’ renowned shooting guru. But there were also plenty of trips to Lanier High School’s gym on the West Side, where he shot on off days.

“Keldon is extraordinary at the simple shot things: one dribble, pull up. He has it down to a tee,” said Voks boys basketball coach Joseph Martinez, who held up Johnson’s work ethic as an example to his players.

At Spur practices and shootarounds, Johnson connected well with Engelland, who has helped transform so many players, including Kawhi Leonard, into deadly shooters.

“He is a great teacher,” Popovich said of Engelland. “He understands every facet of shooting. He has a knack for knowing what to point to as far as improvement is concerned. He can figure out common denominator-wise what needs to be improved. His sequential approach to it is always accurate. He doesn’t skip steps and the players always become more confident working with him. They don’t become confused.”

Engelland also excels at getting players to ignore noise coming from outside the Spurs’ protective cocoon.

“Sometimes if people aren’t good shooters, they have 15 people talking to them about what they need to do, probably including family and friends and agents and everybody in the world,” Popovich said. “He cuts through all that stuff and gains their confidence and their trust.”

It also helps that Engelland makes Johnson laugh.

“He is definitely one of a kind,” Johnson said. “I don’t know anybody like him. It’s hard to describe. He just gets through to us in different ways. It’s not always by being serious all the time. He’s a goofy guy. He tells a lot of jokes. But when he needs to be serious, he’s serious.”

The same is true of Johnson, whose boisterous, boyish behavior lights up the locker room and practice facility. But when it comes time to work, he’s all business.

“He wants to be a really good player,” Popovich said. “He’s coachable. He’s one of the favorite guys on the team, a great teammate. If you have somebody who is that willing to learn and is that competitive, it’s going to spill over in a lot of ways — whether it’s 3-point shooting or playing better defense or using his body to rebound a little bit better. Those are the reasons that makes him so well-rounded.”

Johnson entered Sunday’s game averaging 16.3 points and 6.1 rebounds, both career highs. Although he scored only 11 points on just 2 of 8 from 3-point territory in Friday’s deflating 33-point loss to New Orleans, Johnson was on a tear before that downer, averaging 20.6 points in his previous 15 games.

During that span, he scored 20-plus points eight times and 30-plus three times, including a career high 34 in a loss to Minnesota last week.

That hot streak — and all his shooting success this season — is a result of his coaches and teammates pushing him daily, he said.

“My mindset is to keep getting better and better,” Johnson said. “And with my coaches staying on me and my teammates wanting me to just be better and better, I finally caught me rhythm and I am just excelling. I am just thankful for Pop and my teammates, and I keep grinding and keep giving them a reason to trust me.”

After three years as a part-time employee covering mainly high school sports, Tom Orsborn became a full-time employee at the Express-News in October 1985. He's covered the Dallas Cowboys and the NFL since 1999 and has also covered the Spurs, the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, and a variety of other events, including 14 Super Bowls.