Dallas Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg just crashed a club usually reserved for LeBron James and then one-upped it. Flagg, at 18 years and 343 days, first became the second-youngest player in NBA history to score 30-plus points in a game, trailing only LeBron James, per NBA insider Brett Siegel. Then he kept cooking. By the final buzzer of the Mavericks’ 114-110 win over the Los Angeles Clippers, Flagg had 35 points and the record all to himself as the youngest player ever with a 35-point game.
Flagg finished with 35 points on 13-of-22 shooting and 9-of-11 at the line, adding eight rebounds as Dallas snapped a four-game skid on the second night of a back-to-back via the ESPN Box Score. He scored at all three levels, bullied switches in the paint, and kept attacking even when the Clippers sent extra help.
He did not do it alone. Klay Thompson turned back the clock with 23 points, drilling six 3-pointers and pouring in 17 in the fourth quarter to drag Dallas over the finish line. The Mavericks outscored the Clippers 31-27 in the final frame and needed almost all of it after trailing by seven at halftime.
On the other side, the Los Angeles Clippers got star nights and still lost. Kawhi Leonard dropped 30 points on 10-of-20 shooting and went 7-of-7 at the line, while James Harden added 29 points and 11 assists. The Clippers shot better from the field and dominated the glass 46-37, but coughed up 18 turnovers, which turned into runway opportunities for Flagg.
Dallas moved to 6-15 with the win, while the Clippers fell to 5-15 in what has quietly turned into a crisis start. The bigger story, though, is that an 18-year-old just put himself in sentence-after-LeBron territory again. If this is what Cooper Flagg looks like in November of his rookie year, the rest of the league is on notice.
