Cooper Flagg scored 30 of his career-high 43 points in the second half Monday night, rallying the Dallas Mavericks from 13 points down to a 125-122 win over the Indiana Pacers and putting the 19-year-old rookie in the company of exactly one other teenager in NBA history.
Flagg finished 16 of 25 from the field with 10 rebounds, six assists and three steals in a game recap that confirmed the milestone, making him just the second teenager ever to post a 40-10-5 statline. The only other player to do it was Kevin Durant, who put up 42 points, 13 rebounds and six assists for the Seattle SuperSonics in their April 2008 season finale against Golden State — the franchise's last game before it relocated and became the Oklahoma City Thunder. Kyrie Irving added 35 points for Dallas, hitting 7 of 10 three-point attempts, as the Mavericks erased the deficit built by Pascal Siakam's 29 points, nine rebounds and eight assists for Indiana. Siakam scored 26 of those points before halftime, but the Pacers had no answer in the fourth quarter, and a Caleb Martin steal in the closing seconds snuffed out Indiana's last chance to force overtime.
The performance capped a rapid rise in Flagg's scoring output since the Mavericks made him the No. 1 pick out of Duke. The rookie has set a new career high in points on several occasions already this season, climbing from the 20s into the 30s before Monday's leap into the 40s, and his minutes and usage have grown correspondingly as Dallas head coach Jason Kidd has given him a larger share of the offense each week.
A number only Durant had reached as a teen
The 40-10-5 milestone places Flagg's performance in a different category than an ordinary breakout scoring night. Durant's version came at 19 years and 124 days old in a game that meant little in the standings; Flagg reached it in his first NBA season, in a game his team needed, against a Pacers defense that had given up comparatively little all year. Dallas has leaned increasingly on Flagg's shot creation as his rookie season has progressed, and Monday's second half — in which Flagg repeatedly attacked off the dribble rather than working primarily in catch-and-shoot situations — looked like a preview of how the Mavericks intend to use him down the stretch of the season.
The win keeps Dallas in the thick of a crowded Western Conference picture entering the season's second month, while Indiana, which led by as many as 13 points in the first half, now faces a familiar question about closing out road underdogs against elite individual performances.
Wembanyama keeps rolling in San Antonio
Flagg's night overshadowed another standout performance across the league: Victor Wembanyama finished with 40 points, 11 rebounds and eight blocked shots on 15-of-19 shooting as the San Antonio Spurs routed the Phoenix Suns 122-96 for their ninth consecutive win. San Antonio led 61-46 at halftime before blowing the game open in the third quarter, when Wembanyama and rookie guard Dylan Harper combined for 24 of the team's 32 points — Harper's 14-point quarter a career high. The Spurs led by as many as 34 points in the fourth quarter. Devin Booker scored 32 for Phoenix, whose two-game winning streak ended, while bench center Khaman Maluach added 11.
Taken together, the two games underline how quickly this season's hierarchy is shifting: a 19-year-old rookie delivering a historic stat line in a hard-fought road win, and a 22-year-old reigning Defensive Player of the Year candidate piling up a ninth straight blowout. Both the Mavericks and Spurs are back in action this week, with Flagg's rookie-of-the-year case and Wembanyama's MVP-conversation credentials both likely to get louder the longer their respective runs continue.
