With 31 seconds left in Miami on Monday night, Andrew Wiggins rose for a 3-pointer that would have given the Heat the lead. Cooper Flagg got a hand on it.
Twenty-one seconds later, Flagg spun past Wiggins and twisted in a left-handed layup that put the Dallas Mavericks up 113-109 for good. It capped a night in which the 19-year-old scored 29 points on 12-of-23 shooting and handed out 11 assists in his return from a one-game absence with a sore left shoulder.
Flagg added six rebounds and five steals. The AP and ESPN's box score credit him with three blocks; the player notes on the Mavericks' site list two.
Taking the fourth
Miami led 84-83 after three quarters and had been in front by as many as 12 earlier. Flagg scored 12 points in the fourth, and he and Walter Clayton Jr. combined for seven points in a stretch that turned a 95-93 lead into a 104-97 edge with 4:52 left.
Dallas then survived a run of late turnovers. Flagg hit a 3-pointer with 2:02 to play for a 111-105 lead before Miami closed within two and got the ball back.
"He just needed a crease and that's a bad dude to get in the paint like that and finish," Mavericks coach Dusty May told the team's website, adding that Miami had brought Bam Adebayo and Giannis Antetokounmpo over to contest the final shot. "The biggest possession of the game, we just put it in his hands."
Flagg had been whistled for two charges earlier when he drove before the floor was set. On the clinching play, he said, he waited.
"Once I had everybody set, just taking advantage of the space," he said. "I was confident in my ability to get by him."
Matching Giannis
Antetokounmpo had 29 points and 11 assists for his first triple-double with the Heat, and he had it before the third quarter was half over. The Mavericks sent extra defenders at him in the fourth, when he scored only four points.
