Cooper Flagg

Gabe Flores

Cooper Flagg posted 17 points and 6 assists against the Sacramento Kings. DALLAS MAVERICKS on Social Media: ► Follow us X: / dallasmavs ► Like us Facebook: / dallasmavs ► Follow us Instagram: / dallasmavs For more updates check us out on Mavs.com: https://www.mavs.com

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Cooper Flagg (17 PTS 6 AST) vs. Sacramento Kings | November 2, 2026

Dwain Price

Over the course of a long 82-game season, what happened to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night will likely also happen to the other 29 NBA teams on multiple occasions this season. For the Mavs, it just leaves a sour taste in their mouth when it happens.

Favored to win a game this season for the first time – against a Sacramento team that was the league’s only winless squad – the Mavs surprisingly played down to the competition and wound up losing to the pesky Kings, 115-100, at American Airlines Center.

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In having their three-game winning streak snapped, the Mavs fell to 4-3 as they head to San Antonio on Wednesday, while the Kings improved to 1-6. Afterward, Mavs coach Dusty May didn’t make any excuses for his team, who looked nothing like the team that swept through Miami, Oklahoma City and Houston last week.

“I want to credit Sacramento,” May said. “They were the more determined team tonight and the more prepared team, and they came in here and earned it.

“We didn’t put much pressure on the paint and on the rim, and we were on our heels. Win or lose, we’re going to look back at our process and see: Did we prepare the right way, did we have the right game plan, what would we do different the next time?”

The Mavs couldn’t contain rookie Darius Acuff Jr. (25 points, five rebounds, six assists), Malik Monk (24 points, seven assists) or Zach LaVine (23 points, 5-of-9 three-pointers). And for that, they paid dearly against a Sacramento squad that has lost five of its games by 11 or more points.

“To be honest, I think they were more hungry than us tonight,” said Mavs guard Walter Clayton Jr., who scored a team-high tying 20 points and converted 4-of-5 three-pointers. “I think we kind of played to their record.

“We didn’t play up to our abilities. We lost the rebounding battle (42-35). That was a big one. They beat us to a lot of 50-50 (balls). We just got to come out with more energy.”

Yes, the Mavs played without superstar guard Kyrie Irving, who was resting as Dallas played the first of five games in eight days. And when Cooper Flagg struggled with just 17 points on 3-of-19 shots, not many players stepped up to become a factor.

May acknowledged that the Kings loaded the paint and forced Flagg to become a jump shooter, and he kept missing the mark.

“There’s a cadence to it where he’s fanning out early and then we missed our first (10) threes and we thought several of them were good looks,” May said. “At that point it fuels their fire to get to him even more in the paint. . .and they’re running a second guy and a third guy at him.

“I don’t think our spacing or relocations were great as a whole, and we didn’t find any rhythm together.”

The Mavs, who got 13 points in 17 minutes from rookie Morez Johnson Jr., entered the fourth quarter down, 81-74. And whenever they tried to nip away at the deficit, either Acuff, Monk or LaVine kept burying big shots.

“They spread us out and they made tough shots,” May said. “I thought LaVine was very, very sound. Obviously, Acuff is dynamic. I thought they picked their spots well.

“But Monk, every time we made a run he came back with a step-back three dagger after dagger. It wasn’t as if they didn’t make plays.”

In the meantime, the Mavs missed their top playmaker – Irving.

“He does so much for us in making big shots and calming us down,” May said. “We haven’t been able to answer runs very well, and that’s one area that he does.

“When one of your guys is out and another one just has an off night, you’ve got to have some other guys step up. And making shots is part of that, and it just didn’t drop tonight.”

On playing without Irving, center Daniel Gafford said: “We definitely missed him. He has a lot of gravity when he’s on the floor. He makes everyone’s job a little easier.

“But whenever he’s not on the floor everybody knows it’s the next man up. Everybody has to take that next step and find ways to make an impact whenever one of our star players is not on the floor.”

Overall, the Mavs shot 41 percent from the field and just 21.2 percent (7-of-33) from beyond the three-point arc. They started slow – down 19-18 after the first quarter and 54-53 at the half – and finished even slower.

Indeed, it was not one of the Mavs’ finer moments, especially considering the competition.

“I felt like the energy was a little low,” said Gafford, who collected 20 points and seven rebounds and was 9-of-10 from the field. “P.J. (Washington) said it a lot in the locker room -- we played their record tonight, 100 percent. They came in and they played like pros tonight.”

Sacramento shot 52.4 percent from the floor and 44.2 percent (19-of-43) from three-point land. For the most part, the Kings were in command of this game.

“We’ll have several learning experiences from this game,” May said. “We do have a young team and when it’s not going well, we just kept stressing everything’s going poorly for us, but let’s just find a way to hang around and get it to the end.

“Their shot-making prevented us from doing that. Those guys, they found great connections -- especially in the fourth quarter -- found some matchups, and I thought they played unselfish basketball.”

Now the Mavs must regroup and battle a Spurs team that defeated them in Dallas, 122-106, on Oct.24.

“We can’t let the record fool us, at the end of the day,” Gafford said of the Kings. “An 0-6 team coming in with a fire under their tail. We had to be ready for anything. There were times when shots didn’t fall and I felt like we kind of let go of the rope in those situations.

“We’ll let this hurt until midnight, and then we’ll focus on the next one. We’ve got a big game coming up in two days against a good Spurs team. We can’t dwell too much on this one.”

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Mavericks fall to previously winless Kings, 115-100

Eddie Sefko

If you wondered what a perfect tag team looks like, Kyrie Irving and Cooper Flagg showed you on Friday night.

Rarely in Mavericks’ history have two elite players looked so comfortable, so compatible, as the grizzled veteran and plucky teenager did in the 116-111 win over the Houston Rockets.

If this is the blueprint for the Mavericks, their bandwagon is going to run out of room real quick.

The Irving-Flagg consortium pinned 68 points in handing the Rockets their first loss of the season. It was the basketball equivalent of ham-and-egging it, as they say in golf when one member of a twosome picks up the other.

“One of them would screen the other one, one of them would cut to get some attention (off) the other one,” coach Dusty May said. “For one guy to do it over and over and over, it’s taxing. For those guys to be able to share that load and have two guys who are closers like they are, that makes you feel very confident going into close games.”

Confident to the tune of 26 second-half points for Irving. Confident to the tune of five Flagg points in the final 100 seconds of play when the game was on the line.

And the best part about the synergy between Flagg and Irving is that it doesn’t look forced in the slightest. Plus, the best is yet to come, they say.

“It’s not a perfect formula and we’re still working out a lot of the kinks and figuring out how we can help each other best,” Flagg said. “There’s a lot of moments when we realize we can help each other more. There’s been a lot of learning experiences. But there’s more and more we can do and alleviate some pressure and make it easier for one another.”

The other side of that equation is whether or not their teammates can continue to produce as they did against the Rockets, when P.J. Washington, Daniel Gafford and Zaccharie Risacher had pivotal moments late in the game.

But the whole thing works a lot better because Flagg and Irving can feed so well off of each other. And before you start to come with the obvious concern about Flagg being 19 years old and Irving being 34, they’ve already heard it and disregarded it.

“We obviously know about the external chatter about the 15-year age gap and what we can accomplish and how we’re going to mesh,” Irving said. “I think we kind of threw all that out the window and focused on what we can control.

“He’s a very diverse threat, I’m a very diverse threat. We just play off each other well.”

And that has made life a little easier for May. The Mavericks are 4-2 despite a torturous schedule to start the season.

They still haven’t really accomplished anything, other than making sure they aren’t digging out of a deep hole after the first two weeks of the season.

“We look like a team,” he said. “Obviously, when I watch these games (on tape), just to see how our bench is about each other. I want to shout-out Dereck Lively, he’s a big part of that. His energy is contagious and he’s got such a positive spirit to him. We look like a group trying to find a way to win together.”

And that’s where the new culture May has implemented seems to be jelling early.

“Whether things are going well or poorly, simply get to the next thing, the next practice, the next possession, those are usually the teams that are standing longer than they probably should have otherwise,” he said.

“Being on a young team, bringing it every day and helping the group find solutions to problems and doing it in the manner he does it, is incredible,” May said of Irving. “His stat line looks great. But his leadership and grace with his teammates are even more impressive to me.”

Which works out well because even as great as Flagg is, he’s only 19. There is a lot that he still has to learn. But he is wise beyond his years when it comes to knowing how important Irving is – to everybody.

“We just played off each other really well,” Flagg said. “He’s a very vocal leader with the ball in his hands. It’s great. We have a lot of guys who are stars in their roles. That’s what we’re seeing as we start to get a couple wins here early – Zacch, P.J., Gaff – those guys are all stars in their roles and they’re vital to our success.

“But it’s great to have Kai out there, someone who puts the ball in the basket better than the best of them.”

Briefly: Naji Marshall suited up against Houston, but did not play. “He hasn’t practiced yet,” May said. “And he’s probably lost some weight.” Marshall had an illness that cost him three games. May said he wanted to give the 6-6 forward a few extra days to get his conditioning back before Monday’s game against Sacramento. “It was a tough decision, but we just thought for our team and him, it was the right thing,” May said . . . The Mavericks have won three in a row. Last season, they only had two winning streaks as long as three games . . . Irving, by the way, made all six of his free throws against the Rockets and now has made 55 in a row dating back to before his knee injury. It’s the longest streak of his career and the longest active streak in the NBA.

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Flagg-Irving tag team shines, but the best is yet to come, they say

Cooper Flagg powered the Mavericks to a victory in their first NBA Cup game of the season, finishing with 33 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists in a win over the Houston Rockets. The 19-year-old joins Luka Dončić (4 games, 1/9-16/19) as the only teenagers in NBA history to record 3-or-more consecutive 25-5-5 games. DALLAS MAVERICKS on Social Media: ► Follow us X: / dallasmavs ► Like us Facebook: / dallasmavs ► Follow us Instagram: / dallasmavs For more updates check us out on Mavs.com: https://www.mavs.com

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Cooper Flagg (33 PTS 9 REB) vs. Houston Rockets | October 30, 2026

He’s only in his second season, but Cooper Flagg has already planted a proverbial flag in the ground while subconsciously letting the masses know that he’s among the next wave of extremely talented young players who could become one of the faces of the NBA.

But none of the league-wide respect the Dallas Mavericks’ forward has received is a surprise to coach Dusty May. He knows Flagg moved the needle last year when he was named the NBA Rookie of the Year, and he knows he has a wealth of talent to add many more awards to his trophy case.

“You watch him from afar and he’s a guy that he’s just always going about his business,” May said. “I had a friend who trained him when he was young, so I knew what his DNA is.

“I don’t think there’s anything that surprises me, seeing where he’s from, seeing the people he surrounds himself with. He’s very, very unique and special.”

So special that Flagg could invariably find himself representing the United States as a member of the 2028 Olympics, which will be played in Los Angeles. After all, Flagg collected 29 points, six rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and three blocks as the Mavs went on the road and defeated the Miami Heat, 113-109, this past Monday.

Thus, Flagg became the first teenager in NBA history to record a massive stat line which included a player scoring at least 25 points, distributing at least 10 assists, grabbing at least five rebounds and picking up at least five steals in a single game. One person with a front row seat watching Flagg’s heroics was Heat coach Erick Spoelstra, who will be the head coach of Team USA at the Olympics in LA.

Flagg’s dominant performance against the Heat served as somewhat of an audition for Spoelstra that actually never crossed the Maine's product mind. In short, Flagg has always been resourceful about keeping the main thing the main thing, which is winning games.

“Obviously, I’ve played for the country before when I was younger playing for the (FIBA) Under-17 team,” Flagg said. “So it’s obviously a pleasure to be able to play for my country every chance I get.

“I have no idea what (the 2028 USA Olympic team is) going to look like. That’s a good ways down the road. Obviously, if I was ever asked to be able to play for my country, that’s something I would love to do and that would be amazing.”

Flagg played on the FIBA Under-17 team that captured the gold medal in the 2022 World Cup in Spain.

On his NBA journey, what’s been amazing is the way Flagg stepped onto basketball’s biggest stage last season as an 18-year old – he played one year at Duke – and acted like putting up eye-popping performances night-in and night-out was just second nature to him. He’s been so oblivious to the supposedly pressures of being the No. 1 overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft that it’s become stunning to some onlookers the way he just takes over games.

“He’s a major problem,” said Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle. “He’s so hard to guard for many reasons.

“But one of the reasons is he handles the pick-and-roll so much. At his size and with his ballhandling ability and his ability to turn the corner and get in there and get fouled and cause problems. . .Flagg’s obviously a great young player.”

At 6-10, Flagg possesses the ability to grab a defensive rebound and utilize his exceptional speed to go coast-to-coast and finish a play with a thunder dunk. Then again, he’s added a respectful three-point game to his repertoire to go along with his dead-eye mid-range jumper, his ability to attack the rim and his vision to see the whole floor and become the author of so many assists.

“That’s just kind of how I always play – just making the right plays,” said Flagg, who had 26 points and eight assists during Wednesday’s 120-96 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. “Whether it was scoring, passing, rebounding, getting in the lane, steals, blocks, (I’m) just trying to impact the game and impact winning and competing at a high level.

“I’m just holding my lines, getting all the way downhill, trying to create more contact and get fouled. I think just getting stronger helps with that, too -- being able to hold my line better and be more physical.”

And Flagg isn’t just impacting the game on the offensive end of the floor, where he’s averaging 25.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists while shooting a solid 52.2 percent from the field. He takes just as much pride shutting down offensive-minded players as he’s averaging 1.3 blocks and is tied for second in the league in steals at 2.8 per game.

“That’s one thing that surprised me a little bit with Coop is his off-ball instincts,” May said. “He’s got football safety-type of instincts reading where the ball is going (and) reading what’s going on behind him.

“We felt like just the first week of summer workouts that he would be someone that we would probably need to tailor our defense around a little bit as a special guy that when he went for one (steal) we had to be ready to rotate in case he missed it. So we immediately started doing more rotational type of stuff because he has that unique gift.”

It’s the unique gift that keeps on giving from a player who is just 19 years old.

“The thing that I’ve been blown away at is the ball comes out of his hands at the right time,” May said of Flagg. “A lot of times guys will hold the ball because they want the assist, or some guys will hold the ball and try to make the play.

“He has just as many hockey assists as he does regular assists, because he doesn’t care about it.”

What Flagg cares about is the team concept. He’s not one to stay in a blowout game to pad his stats -- as some NBA players are known to do.

Playing alongside nine-time All-Star guard Kyrie Irving, meanwhile, has been very beneficial to Flagg taking his game to a higher level.

“Having so much gravity as a player like he is, it attracts so much attention that it opens up the floor for everybody else,” Flagg said, referring to Irving. “I think my gravity, as I continue to grow more and more gravity, I think I’ve gotten him some easier looks as well.

“We’re just finding ways to play off each other and find him -- and him finding me -- and just helping each other and making the game easier has been something that’s been fun to experiment with. I think there’s a lot of growth – another gear that we can get to with each other out there and help each other out there. But it’s been a pleasure to be able to just be alongside him and learn kind of on the fly.”

While kind of learning on the fly, the impressionable Flagg has been teaching defenders a thing or two about the difficulties of trying to slow him down.

“He’s a big-time player,” OKC coach Mark Daigneault said. “He’s impressive because of his motor at that level.

“The high-end talents don’t always play with that kind of motor, but to me that’s the thing. When I think about us with (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) and Chet (Holmgren), that’s the thing. That’s the secret sauce, because those guys are monster competitors. He’s in that mode.”

By being in that mode of being a monster competitor, Flagg has rightfully taken his place among the NBA’s elite players. Coaches get in the lab and put their best defensive wing player on him, and they still have problems trying to contain him.

“His court vision, his ability to read (defenses), but also too, some of his unique talents as far as his size and athleticism – and we’re playing a complex defensive team – he can hang and he can make those decisions in the air because of his gifts,” May said. “But also he’s just a really smart player.

“He’s good in the halfcourt, he’s good in transition, but most importantly he’s unselfish and the way he sees the game. He’s just playing the game the right way.”

And by playing the game the right way, it probably will come as no surprise to many if Flagg winds up in Los Angeles in 2028 – representing the USA in the Olympics.

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Cooper Flagg could be on the verge of representing USA in '28 Olympics

Cooper Flagg powered the Mavericks to a 120-96 win over the Thunder, finishing with 26 points, 8 assists, and 5 rebounds. DALLAS MAVERICKS on Social Media: ► Follow us X: / dallasmavs ► Like us Facebook: / dallasmavs ► Follow us Instagram: / dallasmavs For more updates check us out on Mavs.com: https://www.mavs.com

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Cooper Flagg (26 PTS 8 AST) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder | October 28, 2026

The reigning Rookie of the Year is entering his sophomore season with high expectations and his teammates are just as excited about what’s ahead for the young star. DALLAS MAVERICKS on Social Media: ► Follow us X: / dallasmavs ► Like us Facebook: / dallasmavs ► Follow us Instagram: / dallasmavs ► Follow us TikTok: / dallasmavs For more updates check us out on Mavs.com: https://www.mavs.com

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MavsTV | Mavs Insider | Year Two of Cooper Flagg

Cooper Flagg delivered a monster performance with 29 points, 11 assists, 6 rebounds, and 5 steals to lead the Dallas Mavericks to a 113-109 win over the Miami Heat. DALLAS MAVERICKS on Social Media: ► Follow us X: / dallasmavs ► Like us Facebook: / dallasmavs ► Follow us Instagram: / dallasmavs For more updates check us out on Mavs.com: https://www.mavs.com