‘Beautiful To Watch’: Kyrie Irving On Closing Alongside Cooper Flagg In Dallas Mavericks’ Win Over Houston Rockets

DALLAS — Kyrie Irving and Cooper Flagg combined for 68 points on Friday night, and 27 of them came in a 40-point fourth quarter as the Dallas Mavericks beat the Houston Rockets 116-111 at American Airlines Center. Irving, 34, scored 35, and Flagg, 19, scored 33.

The two shot a combined 25-of-38 from the field and 13-of-16 at the free-throw line. Irving scored 16 in the fourth quarter and Flagg scored 11, and the Mavericks handed Houston its first loss of the season in the opening game of Emirates NBA Cup group play.

Dallas last had two 30-point scorers in the same game on Feb. 5, 2026, when Naji Marshall and Flagg did it against the San Antonio Spurs. The Mavericks had only one other such game last season, on Dec. 23, 2025, when Anthony Davis joined Flagg over 30. Irving and Luka Dončić were the last Dallas pair to each score at least 33 in a game, in 2023-24.

Irving is in his 15th NBA season. Flagg, the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, turns 20 on Dec. 21.

“It’s beautiful to watch, whether the ball’s in my hands or the ball’s in his hands. It was, in terms of our selection of shots, he’s gonna get into the paint. I’m gonna be an outside perimeter threat. He can be an outside perimeter threat, I can get in the paint,” Irving said. “But I think overall our teammates trust in us to be able to make the right plays. And then, honestly, just in reality, just having a teenager out there, making these tough shots and getting and-ones and being as clutch as anyone I’ve seen, it’s just amazing to be a part of.”

“It does take some pressure off of me to be able to make plays down the stretch. And I think that’s what makes it beautiful to watch and experience. And we’re still growing,” Irving continued. “I think he said it best. We still have a level that we wanna get to, a higher level, and we’re gonna continue to push each other to do so.”

“We obviously know the external chatter as well about the 15-year age gap and what we can accomplish and how we’re gonna mesh. And I think we kind of throw that out the window and just really focused on what we can control, which is our effort and how we treat each other, and then bigging up each other’s skill sets,” Irving added. “He’s a very diverse threat. I’m a very diverse threat. We just play off each other well.”

Kyrie Irving On Cooper Flagg’s Competitive Nature

Friday was the 75th regular-season game of Flagg’s career, and he has now scored 30 or more points in 13 of them. He was the 2025-26 Rookie of the Year, a season Irving missed entirely while recovering from a torn ACL.

“I always speak on his competitive nature. It’s very rare. You obviously have guys that are very talented, do a lot of great things athletically, but that competitive nature and that drive to wanna be the best, to wanna win ballgames, to wanna do little things, that has to come from [within], and I think he exudes it,” Irving said. “Sometimes you look at him, he looks tired, and he makes an outstanding play, a block, or he hits a tough layup, or he throws a lob. It just helps settle us in, and whenever we’re out there on the offensive perimeter, we’re able to identify what our matchups are and be smart about it.”

“So I think his IQ and his competitive nature has put him in this spot today. … He has a great supporting cast around, including myself, a veteran where he could look to me, and there hasn’t been too many concepts or too many things in games I haven’t seen,” Irving continued. “So I know he’s relatively new to this. He’s no longer a rookie, so we don’t have to treat him like that. But we give him his respect as he continues to earn it, and that’s what the NBA is about.”

Irving went 4-for-4 at the free-throw line in the fourth quarter and has now made 55 straight free throws, the longest active streak in the league. He also scored 10 of Dallas’ first 17 points of the period.

“It probably for me started in fifth grade, to be honest with you. I think that my dad put the ball in my hands very young, and I had to earn my teammates’ trust,” Irving explained. “And I think on every team, obviously, I played different roles, but when everybody’s looking at you to shoot the shots or looking to another teammate to shoot the shots, and you’ve earned it. And you gotta earn it in practice, you gotta earn it in the way you work on your game, and you gotta show it in the big-time moments.”

“And you gotta deal with the emotional up and down of making, missing, that’s it,” Irving added. “So the clutch gene really can be developed, or it’s innate, or both.”

Dusty May On Two Closers Sharing The Load

Houston tied the game at 100 with 2:26 left, the 10th tie of the night. Dallas scored 7 of the next 9 points, starting with Irving’s 17-foot pull-up off a Flagg pass and Flagg’s and-one floater off an Irving pass.

Flagg’s 13-foot turnaround with 24.3 seconds left made it a four-point game. Irving then went 4-for-4 at the line in the final 6.2 seconds.

“When you go back and look at it, one of them would screen the other one. One of them would cut to get some attention on the other one,” Mavericks coach Dusty May said. “And also too, it’s just tough to go, when you’re in a tight game, probably six minutes left, it’s a one-possession game, for one guy to do it over and over and over and over and over. It’s taxing.”

“And then the defense that they have to play and exert the energy they have to exert on the other end,” May continued. “For those guys to be able to share that load and have two guys who just are closers like they are, there’s several layers to it that makes you feel good, very confident going into close games.”

Irving had 6 assists after halftime, and Flagg had 5. Flagg finished with 15 first-half points, and Irving took over with 26 in the second half.

“I thought, like I said, just playing off each other really well. He was able to go on runs and be a very vocal leader with the ball in his hands,” Flagg said. “I was able to come in, contribute in a very similar way, and kind of just made the game easier for each other. And I thought that was really, really good.”

Flagg also said he spent much of last season talking with Irving about the mental side of late-game shots. The Mavericks are 4-2 and host the Sacramento Kings on Monday, with tip-off at 7 p.m. CT.