Cooper Flagg's 43-Point Night Put Him in a Two-Man Club With Kevin Durant — and the Teenage Record Run Still Has Six Weeks to Go
Monday's 43 points, 10 rebounds and six assists made the Mavericks' 19-year-old the second teenager in NBA history with a 40-10-5 game, after Kevin Durant in 2008 — and with five 40-point games as a teenager, the most ever, and a December 21 birthday, the record book is not finished with him. Tuesday's reporting traced the night to a summer of mid-range work.
DALLAS — The game story ran Monday night: Mavericks 125, Pacers 122, Cooper Flagg 43, Kyrie Irving 35. The record book filed its version on Tuesday, and it is the rarer document. Flagg's line — 43 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, three steals, one block — made him the second teenager in NBA history to record at least 40 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a game. The first was Kevin Durant, in 2008. Flagg also now owns five 40-point games as a teenager, the most in NBA history, and he does not turn 20 until December 21 — six more weeks of eligibility for records with an age limit.
The Associated Press's account supplies the season context the record sits inside. Flagg and Irving combined for 26 points in the fourth quarter — including Dallas's first 13 — as the Mavericks outscored Indiana 35–29 in the period. Irving's 35 came in a season-high 38 minutes, completing a back-to-back for the first time this season. Dallas (7–4) swept its three-game homestand and is three games over .500 for the first time since March 1, 2025, and Flagg has posted four straight double-doubles, five this season.
The Dallas Sports Journal's Tuesday account explains where the closing shots came from. With 62 seconds left and Dallas up two, Flagg pulled up from 18 feet and scored; with 26.3 seconds left, he did it again. Five of his 16 field goals (on 16-of-25 shooting) were jumpers from 10 to 18 feet, per the official play-by-play — a mid-range package the report traces to spot work Flagg did over the summer. It was also the second night of a back-to-back, one night after a 130–93 win over Brooklyn, which makes the 38-minute, take-over-the-fourth shape of the performance the detail that travels.
What travels next is the team. Dallas opens a three-game road trip Thursday at Minnesota (7 p.m. CT), then visits Cleveland on November 14 and Boston on November 15. A 7–4 start built at home now gets its first honest road audit — and its 19-year-old, for six more weeks, keeps playing against a record book that only he and Durant have ever touched in quite this way.
