When Jordan Clarkson entered the Utah Jazz’s locker room ahead of Saturday night’s game, he was chatting with Mike Conley, who casually threw a challenge his way during their conversation.
“A big part of it was Mike. When I walked in today, he was like: ‘You know what I ain’t seen you do all year? Get 40.’ And it just pinged in my head,” Clarkson recounted.
And so, just as casually, Clarkson went out and racked up 45.
A career-high 45 points. A most off the bench by anyone in the NBA this season 45 points. A Sacramento Kings-defeating and weekend-salvaging 45 points.
Can we have more casual bets among Jazz players, please?
Yeah, Clarkson’s career night was pretty well-timed, coming as it did one night after the Jazz blew a 15-point fourth-quarter lead in San Antonio, casting a grim pall over the team after their latest letdown.
It also came in a game in which the Jazz were missing Conley, Rudy Gobert, and Trent Forrest from the rotation, and could have easily allowed their malaise to linger.
Coach Quin Snyder noted pregame that, with Utah short-handed, it was important for the players who were available not to try and do things out of character, but to simply go about their business as usual.
“It’s important for guys to do what they’re capable of doing,” Snyder said. “… The risk sometimes is guys feel like they have to pick up the slack [by] doing things that maybe they aren’t as efficient at doing.”
And his thoughts following Utah’s much-needed bounce-back 134-125 victory over Sacramento about how they followed through with that?
“The big fella [Hassan Whiteside] had 21 rebounds. That’s pretty good. … Jordan’s scoring is in character, Bojan [Bogdanovic]’s scoring is in character. And Donovan [Mitchell] did a great job of setting those guys up and then he also picked his spots late,” Snyder said.
All true.
Especially Clarkson turning into a walking bucket.
The so-called “Flamethrower” and reigning Sixth Man of the Year dropping in a bunch of buckets in a short span is, indeed, nothing new or unusual.
Him doing it on 15-for-21 shooting? That’s pretty exceptional and extraordinary.
Asked when he realized his teammate was on an out-of-body heater, Mitchell said Clarkson’s immediate reaction to an early beyond-the-arc attempt was a harbinger of the incendiary evening to come.
“When he shot the 3, and he put his hands down. And it just went straight through. That’s when I knew,” Mitchell said. “As a shooter, as a scorer, you kind of have a sense. … Every time I had the ball, I was like, ‘Get him the ball.’”
That proved a good strategy.
Despite some porous defense by the Jazz in the first quarter resulting in an inexplicable 42 points from the Kings, JC kept Utah close by dropping in 14 himself on 5 of 6 shooting.
He added another 10 points in the second, a relatively quiet six in the third, and he made sure the team was not going to suffer a repeat of Friday night’s fourth-quarter meltdown in San Antonio by single-handedly scoring 15 more over the final 12 minutes.
Even though he’s been trending for awhile now toward a positive recalibration following an awful start to the season — pretty much the inverse of a year ago — Clarkson still admitted that a night like this was a most welcome one.
“The ball hasn’t been going in for me a lot this season,” said Clarkson, who’s now up to 41.6% overall and 32.0% from 3. “… If you look at last season, I started off hot and played like s--- the last few months leading up to the playoffs. For me, it was all about figuring out how to play my best basketball toward the end of the year.”
Clarkson, asked what was different for him lately aside from the results, replied flatly, “Nothing.” He’s been staying the course, not changing anything, just continuing to come in every day and putting the work in — film sessions, workouts with assistant coach Jeff Watkinson, off-court workouts.
Everyone on the Jazz has noticed.
“Today, in a lot of respects for JC, was a culmination of just grinding through. Early in the year, he wasn’t hitting shots,” said Snyder. “… But he cares — about winning, about competing. The last month or so, he’s been very deliberate in his work He’s one of those guys that can get cooking, as they say, and tonight he did.”
But no one on the Jazz was dumbstruck by his performance.
“I’m not surprised at all. We all know how good he is,” Bogdanovic said in his usual deadpan. “When he gets hot, it’s really tough to guard him.”
After tying his previous career-high of 42 with a pair of free throws with 4:56 to go, Clarkson had a quiet few minutes afterward, as Bogdanovic (26 points, four rebounds), Mitchell (25 points, six assists, five rebounds), and Whiteside (12 points, 21 boards, three blocks) took their turns carrying the time.
Finally, with 1:55 remaining, and Sacramento within nine, Clarkson sprung free above the break, gathered a pass from Mitchell, rose up immediately, and buried his seventh 3-pointer of the game to effectively put the matchup away.
He said that even as approached the milestone, he was proud that he didn’t start taking crazy shots to hunt it, but stayed within the flow of the offense. He felt like there was only one shot he forced all game — with 26.7 seconds left, the outcome decided, and at Mitchell’s insistent behest.
“Don was like, ‘Bro, shoot it! Shoot it! Shoot it!’” Clarkson recalled with a laugh.
He said Saturday night was the best his shot has felt all season, and conceded he was a bit relieved to see it go in as often as it did.
Following the disappointing result the previous night — the latest curious outcome in an up-and-down season — there was a lot of relief within the confines of Vivint Arena following the second half of the back-to-back.
“This was a game, particularly when they cut it to five, that we dug in,” Snyder said. “It was kind of a ‘man up’-type game.”
And Clarkson was the man.
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