Los Angeles Lakers: Jordan Clarkson looks more comfortable off the bench

The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a bad loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night. Despite the loss, Jordan Clarkson played well in his normal role.

After holding a much-talked-about team meeting, there were some noticeable changes for the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night. With a completely different looking starting lineup, the Lakers were unable to find a spark that they needed to get a win.

Since Lonzo Ball was still out with the shoulder injury, the Lakers went with a starting lineup that didn’t feature a point guard. The past two games with Ball out, Jordan Clarkson has been the starting point guard for the Lakers. However, he hasn’t been that efficient as a starter and didn’t seem very comfortable with the role.

Instead of using Tyler Ennis or Alex Caruso in the starting lineup, Luke Walton elected to go with Josh Hart and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope as the guards. With neither being a point guard, this starting lineup got off to a really slow start offensively, and the Clippers never looked back.

While the wholesale changes to the starting lineup didn’t work out the way the Lakers would have liked, it did move Jordan Clarkson back to the bench. Clarkson had a really solid game for the Lakers in the loss, as he was their leading scorer.

Even though Clarkson logged major minutes once again, he seemed to be in a groove coming off the bench right away. Especially on Christmas Day, Clarkson took a long time before he was able to get into the flow of the game as a starter.

In the loss, Clarkson ended up totaling 20 points and eight assists. Seeing Clarkson shooting an efficient 9-for-16 from the field was certainly encouraging for the Lakers, and he only turned the ball over twice despite playing a lot of minutes.

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Even though Clarkson performed up to his norm in his return to the bench, not having a point guard in the starting lineup clearly hurt the Lakers. After going down by double-digits quick, the Lakers were never able to make enough stops to put pressure on the Clippers. Hopefully, Lonzo Ball will be back soon, as the Lakers need him in their starting five.