Lakers#6 Jordan Clarkson is contested by “n21” and Nuggets#23 Jusuf Nurkic in the first half. The Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA February 10, 2015. (Photos by John McCoy / Los Angeles Daily News)
These games in an otherwise relatively meaningless season all served to teach Lakers rookie point guard Jordan Clarkson a lesson.
He would see to what degree he could both hang with the NBA’s top point guards and refuse to back down from them. He would find out if he could evolve into a more natural playmaker after competing mostly as a combo guard at the University of Missouri. He would aim to control the pace after his unmatched speed sometimes threw himself and teammates more off balance than his opponents.
Yet, Clarkson reported experiencing his “highest” Welcome to the NBA moment since taking the Lakers’ starting point guard position three weeks ago when he was not even playing. It all happened when Lakers coach Byron Scott pulled Clarkson with 1:11 left in the Lakers’ eventual 106-96 loss on Tuesday to the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center.
Scott pulled Clarkson to the side and provided some brutal albeit honest feedback on his defense that contributed to Nuggets guard Ty Lawson posting a season-high 32 points on 12-of-20 shooting and 16 assists.
“He wasn’t guarding him,” Scott said afterwards. “He’s giving up way too much space and way too much respect.”
Scott had instructed Clarkson to force Lawson to use his left hand. Clarkson listened with that. But somehow as he made that adjustment, Clarkson failed to smother Lawson with the same intensity bees latch onto honey.
“I was terrible on defense tonight,” Clarkson said. “I ain’t going to lie. I’m going to go out there and compete and know that’s not going to happen again.”
Clarkson still posted seven points and a season-high seven assists. But he spoiled that effort with both a poor shooting performance (3-of-11) and the aforementioned sub-par defense. That does not erase Clarkson averaging 13 points and 3.8 assists since starting for the past nine games. Clarkson will still start when the Lakers (13-39) visit the Portland Trail Blazers (35-17) where he will have the unenviable task of guarding Damian Lillard, who exploded for 34 points when the Blazers played the Lakers last month.
Beyond proving he will defend his top-ranked opponent more closely, Clarkson also plans to use the NBA’s week-long All-Star break to return to his hometown in San Antonio and workout at his alma mater, Wagner High School. He will then return to Los Angeles on either Sunday or Monday to squeeze in more practice sessions with Lakers veteran guard Steve Nash. After talking through informal text messages in the past few months, Clarkson worked hands-on with Nash two weeks ago.
“We’ll probably watch some film and then go from there,” Clarkson said.
The film against Denver revealed one glaring weakness, and one Clarkson vowed he will correct.
“I have to get in everybody’s face every night,” Clarkson said. “Welcome to the NBA. You have to come every night to play, especially in my position. This is a guard-heavy league. I have to wake up every day with my hard hat on.”
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Follow L.A. Daily News Lakers beat writer Mark Medina on Twitter and on Facebook. E-mail him at mark.medina@langnews.com