{"id":510217,"date":"2026-03-08T00:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T00:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510217\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T00:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T00:42:10","slug":"cooper-flagg-shoots-down-celtics-rumors-after-first-game-at-td-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/510217\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg Shoots Down Celtics Rumors After First Game At TD Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-celtics\/news\/celtics-announce-brutal-nikola-vucevic-injury-update\/3e7da537438fdcd524768134\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Celtics<\/a> took down the Dallas Mavericks by a score of 120-100 on Friday night to get back in the win column after a disappointing loss to the Charlotte Hornets. While this game was very much about <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-celtics\/news\/jayson-tatums-current-3-point-streak-celtics-trails-only-steph-curry\/32b3f787497923d2c723eb36\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jayson Tatum<\/a> making his season debut for the C&#8217;s, it was also an important game for Mavs star rookie Cooper Flagg, as the Maine native played for the first time at TD Garden.<\/p>\n<p>Flagg grew up a <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-celtics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Celtics<\/a> fan, and while he hasn&#8217;t even been with the Mavericks for a year, some folks have wondered whether he&#8217;d be interested in suiting up for Boston at some point in his career. After this game, though, Flagg <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yaboiTCfresh\/status\/2030131724449931301\" rel=\"nofollow\">shot down the notion<\/a> that he&#8217;d even consider leaving Dallas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, I love being a Maverick,&#8221; Flagg said after the game. &#8220;That\u2019s home, and I don\u2019t want anything else. It was incredible to be able to play here; obviously, this is the place I came as a kid and got to watch. I think it\u2019s gonna be incredibly fun for the rest of my career to come here and play in front of this crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, Flagg has become the face of the Mavericks&#8217; future after the team traded away Anthony Davis earlier this season. In 51 games, Flagg has flashed his potential, as he&#8217;s averaging 20.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game while shooting 47.3% from the field.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s very early to begin even thinking about whether or not Flagg would ever want to play for the Celtics, but the ties to the team (he&#8217;s also a former Duke Blue Devil, just like Tatum) are hard to ignore. For now, he will continue playing out the string for Dallas in its lost 2025-26 season, while Boston will look to make a push for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>More NBA:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/boston-celtics\/news\/jaylen-brown-walks-back-best-two-way-player-claim\/921166882fc53fc230c611d2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaylen Brown Walks Back &#8216;Best Two-Way Player&#8217; Claim<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics took down the Dallas Mavericks by a score of 120-100 on Friday night to get&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-510217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}