DALLAS \u2014 Cooper Flagg continued his record-setting rookie season Friday, even as his Dallas Mavericks lost their 14th consecutive home game.<\/p>\n
Flagg scored 51 points in his team\u2019s 138-127 home loss to the Orlando Magic to become the youngest player in NBA history to cross the 50-point threshold. The 19-year-old broke his own record for the highest-scoring game by a teenager, exceeding the 49 points he notched on Jan. 29 against the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n
In 2009, Milwaukee Bucks guard Brandon Jennings scored 55 points when he was 20 years and 52 days old. Flagg is 19 years and 103 days old.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should be rookie of the year,\u201d Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. \u201cThe country is not watching the same thing we get to watch on a daily basis. He\u2019s in rare air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flagg was sitting on 27 points entering the fourth quarter, then exploded for 24 points in the final frame. He had 45 points when he appeared to check out for the final time, with the Mavericks down by 17 and 3:35 remaining, but he returned to the floor 13 seconds later. He quickly scored 6 points to exceed 50, hitting a 3 from the right corner, then converting an and-1 with 2:05 left for his final points.<\/p>\n
Kidd watched most of the fourth quarter in the Mavericks\u2019 locker room after he was ejected with 10:45 remaining for walking on the floor and protesting what he thought was an obvious foul call against Flagg. Magic guard Desmond Bane pushed Flagg in the back on a drive to the basket, but a whistle was not called.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way the game was being officiated was below average,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cUnderstanding that play, when you look at it, he got fouled twice. Not just on the arm, but he got pushed. You could see Bane was taking a foul. For three officials not to see it, my job was to hopefully bring attention to the officiating being better. Hopefully, it will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flagg described Kidd\u2019s reaction to the blown call as \u201cwarranted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to Bane after the play,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cHe told me he was intentionally trying to foul me. I honestly don\u2019t know how they didn\u2019t see that. They must not have had the right view, or they weren\u2019t paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flagg went 19-of-30 from the field and connected on six 3-pointers. He received a loud ovation from the American Airlines Center crowd as he left for good at the 2:04 mark, even with the Mavericks on their way to a loss that dropped them to 24-53 with five games remaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always fun getting into that type of mode when the basket feels big and your teammates are looking out for you,\u201d Flagg said. \u201cBut I love to win. That was my main focus. It\u2019s hard for me to fully enjoy myself when we\u2019re down 20, 10, 15.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flagg now has three games with 40 or more points this season. No other first-year player has scored 40 even once, including Hornets guard Kon Knueppel, Flagg\u2019s chief competition for the Rookie of the Year award.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Flagg\u2019s) spirit is about winning,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cRight now, we\u2019re not. But as he just said in the locker room, we are just going to be that much better come next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s delivered. And the expectations are extremely high on this young man. He\u2019s checked every box every time he\u2019s taken the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 Cooper Flagg continued his record-setting rookie season Friday, even as his Dallas Mavericks lost their 14th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,2695,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-581172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}