{"id":701127,"date":"2026-04-06T09:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701127\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T09:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:31:23","slug":"flagg-19-stars-with-45-points-as-mavericks-beat-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701127\/","title":{"rendered":"Flagg, 19, stars with 45 points as Mavericks beat Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cooper<\/p>\n

Cooper Flagg (left, with LeBron James) was selected with the first overall pick by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2025 NBA draft<\/p>\n

Teenage rookie Cooper Flagg continued his superb run of form by scoring 45 points as the Dallas Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers 134-128 on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old had made history on Saturday when he became the first teenager to score 50 points in an NBA game – finishing with 51 points, including 24 in the fourth quarter, in a defeat by the Orlando Magic.<\/p>\n

He followed up with a 45-point haul in the win over the injury-hit Lakers, adding nine assists and eight rebounds.<\/p>\n

Flagg is the first rookie with back-to-back 40-point games since Allen Iverson in 1997, and is among the favourites to be named this season’s rookie of the year.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks started quickly against the Lakers, who were missing both the NBA’s leading scorer Luka Doncic<\/a> and rising star Austin Reaves, and were 41-30 up at the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

LeBron James, 41, led the Lakers with 30 points, 15 assists and nine rebounds, while Luke Kennard had 15 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists.<\/p>\n

PJ Washington scored 15 points for the Mavericks, Naji Marshall and Brandon Williams added 13 points, and Klay Thompson scored three three-pointers in his 11-point haul.<\/p>\n

Lakers coach JJ Redick it was a “just a poor defensive night” for his side, adding: “We didn’t start the game the right way and just played catch-up the rest of the game.”<\/p>\n

The Lakers are third in the Western Conference, with the 12th-placed Mavericks already out of play-off contention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg (left, with LeBron James) was selected with the first overall pick by the Dallas Mavericks in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[1013,7,225,686,149,4057,1661,498,185,150,368,1171,166,5989,6,76,8283,12482,490],"class_list":{"0":"post-701127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cooper-flagg","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-dallas-mavericks","13":"tag-dallasmavericks","14":"tag-jj-redick","15":"tag-klay-thompson","16":"tag-lebron-james","17":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","18":"tag-luka-doncic","19":"tag-luke-kennard","20":"tag-mavericks","21":"tag-naji-marshall","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-orlando-magic","24":"tag-pj-washington","25":"tag-points","26":"tag-the-mavericks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116357069898975668","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701127","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=701127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}