A nasty ankle sprain suffered against the Sacramento Kings on Jan. 27 forced Noah Clowney to miss 15 straight games, his longest inactive stretch of the season.
Brooklyn obviously missed Clowney’s positional versatility over that stretch. The second-year forward finally returned to the court last Saturday against Charlotte. His performance was understandably rough.
Clowney played 18 minutes off the bench in the Nets’ 105-102 loss at Spectrum Center and missed all five of his shot attempts. It was his second scoreless appearance of the season, and definitely not the kind of return game anyone wants.
However, Monday’s matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers at Barclays Center was a completely different story for Clowney. He scored 19 points, went 5-of-11 from the field, knocked down three 3-pointers and collected five rebounds in just under 23 minutes.
While it took him a game to get going again, the ankle appears to be fine. Instead of pressing, he focused on doing his job against the Lakers, and everything else fell into place.
“I think tonight was a big step in the right direction for me getting back into the rhythm I’d been playing with,” Clowney said. “I think I was playing pretty well before I went down. And then when I went down, my first game back wasn’t super strong. So, I wanted to get a win more than anything, and I ended up having a good performance in that process.”
It also helps that head coach Jordi Fernandez doesn’t limit what he, or any other young players on the roster, are allowed to do on the court. He allows them to play freely on the court. For a shooter like Clowney, it’s easier to regain rhythm when you don’t have to worry about getting benched for taking too many shots.
“Knowing that there aren’t very many restrictions, like, he’s not coming in the locker room telling you, ‘No, you don’t get to shoot that, you don’t get to do that.’ It allows us to play free and confident,” Clowney said of Fernandez. “We just make plays for each other. We know what we want to do… I think that’s good for our confidence and how we played down the stretch.”
Cam Johnson, a fellow forward who plays a similar style, was impressed by the 20-year-old’s performance. He knows how hard it is to dial in from deep after missing extended time.
“For him to come back and have an impact like he did today, I mean, it’s tough,” Johnson said. “It’s difficult to come back from being out for a while and to find your flow, and I think it was a little tough on him maybe the first couple minutes out there, but he kept his head up, and stayed with it and made some big play for us tonight was a big reason we came away with the win.”
Clowney has averaged 9.4 points and 3.9 rebounds across 39 games this season while shooting 37.1% from the field and 34.7% from deep. Now healthy, Fernandez expects the young stretch forward to keep growing.
“Continue to do what he’s been doing defensively,” Fernandez said. “He was very good at protecting the rim, especially going vertical at the rim. He’s grown a lot with his physicality and guarding, then different positions, one-on-one perimeter players, post up players.
“His growth has been great for how young he is. Offensively, he’s ready to let it fly. Probably one of our best guys at being ready to shoot and shooting efficiently…. He’s going to continue to grow and we believe he is and will be a very good two-way player in the NBA.”
