‘I Just Stayed The Course’: Cooper Flagg Scores 15 In Third Quarter As Dallas Mavericks Pull Away From Utah Jazz

DALLAS — Cooper Flagg scored 15 points in the third quarter Friday night, going 4-of-7 from the field and 6-of-6 at the free-throw line. The Dallas Mavericks turned a 57-57 halftime tie into a 112-100 win over the Utah Jazz at American Airlines Center.

Flagg finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, and 3 steals. He had 4 points on 2-of-8 shooting in the first half. Through seven games, he entered Friday shooting 21.2% from 3-point range.

His teammates have kept his head up through it, Flagg said.

“I just stayed the course. Shots will fall,” Flagg said. “And I got to give a lot of credit to my teammates. Obviously, I’ve been struggling a little bit from the field, and I think a lot of the shots that I’m very comfortable taking and making haven’t been going in.”

“So, a lot of credit to my teammates just keeping me in good spirits and keeping my head up high,” Flagg continued. “Just making sure I know that they believe in me has been a big thing, and just trusting that, trusting the effort, just doing the little things to get myself going, and found some energy, and was able to just make some plays.”

Cooper Flagg, Kyrie Irving Close The Third Quarter On A 19-6 Run

Lauri Markkanen made three 3-pointers in the first four minutes of the third quarter, the last tying the game at 68 with 8:02 left. Eighteen seconds later, an Ace Bailey alley-oop dunk off a Darryn Peterson pass gave Utah a 70-68 lead.

Flagg tied it at 70 from the free-throw line. With 7:01 left, Kyrie Irving hit a 15-foot pull-up off a Morez Johnson Jr. pass that put Dallas ahead for good.

From the 70-70 tie, Dallas closed the quarter on a 19-6 run. Irving had 2 steals, a floater, and a 19-foot pull-up during the stretch. Flagg added a cutting dunk off a Naji Marshall pass and a 17-foot pull-up with a minute left.

Marshall’s layup with 8.4 seconds left made it 89-73, Dallas’ biggest lead to that point, before Josh Okogie hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Utah went 7-of-19 from the field and committed 7 turnovers in the quarter, while Dallas committed 1.

According to play-type tracking data, Utah scored on 4 of its 22 half-court possessions in the third quarter. Dallas scored on 13 of its 23.

Irving missed the morning shootaround with an illness and was listed as probable. He went 1-of-9 from the field in the first half, then scored 12 of his 14 points after halftime on 6-of-11 shooting, including 8 in the third quarter.

Flagg and Irving combined for 23 of Dallas’ 32 third-quarter points. Mavericks coach Dusty May said Dallas wore Utah down in the second half with its intensity and on-ball pressure.

“I’m not sure what changed,” May said. “I noticed that it just looked like they were, they’re just playing with great competitive spirit. I thought the second half, for whatever reason, we just kind of locked in, and we just looked like we’re just out there on the playground having fun playing basketball.”

“Their physicality, their intensity, whatever it was, they flipped the switch at half and came out with a different look,” May continued.

Santi Aldama, Flagg On The Dallas Mavericks’ Second-Half Defense

Dallas had 4 steals in the third quarter, 2 from Irving and 1 each from Flagg and Johnson. Flagg had 3 steals for the night and did not commit a foul in 32 minutes, 41 seconds.

“I think definitely. I think that’s what went into it. A lot of the time, even if shots aren’t going in, you got to find ways to impact the game,” Flagg explained. “So I thought as a team, second half we came out with a different defensive tempo and competitive spirit, and I think that led to a lot of easier ones for us.”

In Santi Aldama’s view, Dallas has dug itself holes in earlier games out of frustration over missed shots. Outside of P.J. Washington, who scored 22 points in the first half, the Mavericks shot 14-of-42 before halftime.

“I think we, except P.J., maybe we weren’t really making shots. So sometimes that may lead to frustration,” Aldama said. “But we’ve been in moments where we’ve kind of dug ourselves a hole because maybe we’re overly frustrated because of that. But I think we stayed even keel and we just kept executing.”

“Just keep executing, trust what we do, and then eventually, if we play our brand of basketball, we will win games,” Aldama detailed.

Aldama made his Dallas debut Friday, finishing with 8 points and 9 rebounds. The win snapped a two-game losing streak and moved the Mavericks to 5-4 and 2-0 in NBA Cup group play. Dallas hosts the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. CT.