{"id":644016,"date":"2026-03-06T21:46:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644016\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T21:46:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:46:40","slug":"magic-top-mavericks-to-spoil-cooper-flaggs-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644016\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic top Mavericks to spoil Cooper Flagg’s return"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Wendell Carter Jr. made a go-ahead dunk<\/a> with 1.4 seconds left, and the Orlando Magic beat the Dallas Mavericks 115-114 on Thursday night to spoil Cooper Flagg\u2019s return from injury.<\/p>\n

Flagg\u2019s three-point play with 37.3 seconds left gave Dallas a four-point lead, but Orlando scored the last five points. Jalen Suggs hit a 3-pointer with 32.2 seconds left, and after Flagg missed a jumper, Suggs fed Carter in the paint for the decisive slam.<\/p>\n

Tristan da Silva led the Magic with 19 points. Suggs finished with 17 points and seven assists, Paolo Banchero had 16 points and 12 rebounds, and Carter scored 15.<\/p>\n

Flagg scored 18 points on 7-of-22 shooting in 26 minutes. The top pick in the NBA draft and the league\u2019s highest-scoring rookie, he had missed the previous eight games<\/a> with a sprained left foot.<\/p>\n

Klay Thompson scored 24 points for the Mavericks, coming off the bench to make seven 3-pointers. Khris Middleton scored 10 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter, but the Mavericks lost for the 15th time in 17 games.<\/p>\n

Flagg had five rebounds and six assists and blocked four shots. His first basket, a putback early in the fourth quarter, put him above 1,000 points in his 50th career game. The 19-year-old joined Michael Jordan and Luka Doncic<\/a> as the only players since the 1976 NBA-ABA merger with 1,000 points, 300 rebounds and 200 assists in his first 50 games, per ESPN Insights.<\/p>\n

Dallas played without Brandon Williams, who has a left quad contusion.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Mavericks: At Boston on Friday.<\/p>\n

Magic: At Minnesota on Saturday.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Wendell Carter Jr. made a go-ahead dunk with 1.4 seconds left, and the Orlando…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,10823,225,149,583,420,461,2039,498,368,48,935,6,446,47,76,3883,402,66,2098,1253,582,862],"class_list":["post-644016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando-magic","tag-basketball","tag-brandon-williams","tag-cooper-flagg","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-jalen-suggs","tag-khris-middleton","tag-klay-thompson","tag-luka-doncic","tag-magic","tag-michael-jordan","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-magic","tag-orlandomagic","tag-paolo-banchero","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-tristan-da-silva","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-wendell-carter"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116184428365824077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}