DALLAS – Cooper Flagg had to hold back a grimace as he traded jerseys with his old high school teammate Derik Queen following their initial clash as NBA rivals earlier this month. The reason? Flagg felt irritated after whiffing on a possible game-tying mid-range jumper right at the end of the Mavericks’ defeat to Queen’s Pelicans that evening.
Yet Flagg couldn’t stop grinning when he wrapped Queen in an embrace right after the final buzzer on Friday night, fresh off dropping 12 of his personal-best 29 points in the money quarter to power the Mavericks to a thrilling 118-115 rally triumph inside the American Airlines Center.
This time around, it was Queen who came up empty with a chance to even things up in the dying moments, completely bricking a triple on the Pelicans’ last gasp of the ball. It capped off a gritty end to what had been a stellar showing overall for Queen, who tallied 20 points alongside 7 boards and a personal-best 11 dimes.
“I caught him chuckling at me,” Queen remarked about their after-game chat, harking back to their shared days at Montverde Academy down in Florida. “He was probably cracking up over that brick, but man, what a wild loop back to the start.”
Flagg, sidelined for Wednesday’s stumble against the New York Knicks due to feeling under the weather, turned into an unstoppable presence in the crunch against the Pelicans. Once Queen’s floater in transition put New Orleans back on top with 3:12 left on the clock, Flagg either bucketed or set up five out of the Mavericks’ last eight touches. He chipped in six tallies and a pair of helpers over that decisive surge, highlighted by a dish to Naji Marshall for the trey that handed Dallas the advantage they wouldn’t surrender with just 32 ticks to go.
Even as the 5-12 Mavericks have struggled to seal the deal in tight spots, Flagg has repeatedly flashed that ice-in-his-veins vibe when it counts most. He’s knotted for sixth league-wide with 31 markers on 10-for-16 efficiency in do-or-die moments—think the last five minutes of the fourth or extra time when the margin’s five points or less. Plus, he’s level for second in boards grabbed (14) and fourth in dimes dished (6) during those high-wire acts.
“Those pressure cooker spots? He doesn’t blink,” Mavericks head man Jason Kidd noted. “We hand him the rock, and it’s like he’s run this movie a hundred times. Dropping daggers when the whole building knows you’re the target, staying locked in like that—for a kid who’s barely 18, it’s something else entirely.”
The Mavs clawed back from as many as 15 down in this one, thanks in no small measure to how Queen, now 20, kept Dallas on their heels, particularly through his vision on the bounce pass. He racked up seven dimes just in the opening frame.
“We’ve all witnessed how he’s got that rare gift,” Flagg reflected. “There’s something magnetic about the way he spots open guys and threads needles to the cup. Straight-up mesmerizing.”
Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg evened the score with former high school teammate Derik Queen in a 118-115 win Friday night, two weeks after Queen’s Pelicans won the first meeting.
The Mavericks went into the locker room down 14, where Jason Kidd got in Flagg’s ear: stop living on jumpers that still need polish and start hunting the paint.
Flagg answered the bell with 21 second-half points on 8-of-9 from the floor. Every make after the break came inside the lane except one—a smooth turnaround after he gathered his dribble on the block and spun baseline.
“I was settling,” Flagg admitted afterward. “The jumpers aren’t bad looks, but I was taking the easy way out too often. You have to make the defense feel you.”
He wound up with 20 paint points on the night, making him—per ESPN Research—the second-youngest player in NBA history to reach that mark. Only LeBron James, at 18 years and 334 days old (one day younger than Flagg was Friday), had done it before.
Flagg also stuffed the box score with 7 rebounds and 5 assists, joining LeBron again as the lone 18-year-olds ever to post 25-5-5 in a single game.
“He’s turning into exactly who we thought he’d be,” said P.J. Washington, who added 24 points and 9 boards of his own. “Just playing his game—embracing the moment, attacking the paint, getting to his comfort zones, and always making the right play.”
