One more thing.

Cooper Flag is special.

But Dwight Powell nailed exactly why he specialed after the game

and so many other things after the game against the Pacers.

Today, one more thing.

Right now.

I'm here because I have to do.

Dallas is going to get a secret of the table.

It's me versus the machine.

Nice penetrating thrust to the middle of the middle.

People forget about him. Hot man, the hot player. Wait, wait. One more thing. Yeah, I'm still locked on to the Dallas Mavericks. So are you. Thanks for making Lock on Maps. You're first listening each and every day. I'm Nick Engstead. Covering the Maps for over 10 years here, still at the American Airlines Center tonight because, man, there's just so much happening after this Pacers game, so I want to break it all down. And I want to talk about a bunch of things that Flagg said afterwards. Flagg talked about how he feels about the National Anthem thing, which I think is interesting. We also heard from Kid on Anthony Davis and his injury. Is it the exact same thing he said against the Rockets?

Maybe we'll find out about that.

He also talked about Brandon Williams.

We also had just some other moments.

Dwight Powell talked about it the MVP chance and how he felt about it and all that kind of stuff.

So there's just so many different things I wanted to get into.

But let's start here.

Cooper flag is special. And we've seen in some of these games, except for the Thunder game, where he didn't put up as many counting stats. And you're like, oh, well, it was a second night of a back to back. He got the shoulder injury. He's just 18, all the different kinds of excuses and things you can put up for Cooper Flag. But he's been really great in a lot of these games, and he was great tonight, I thought. 15 points, had 10 rebounds, had a bunch of other things go his way, played really great defense. And the thing about Cooper Flagg that is special, I think Dwight Powell nailed it after the game. Dwight Powell talked about this. He said, Cooper is a competitor by blood. I think he's obviously, he obviously loves the game of basketball, but he's a competitor. He expressed that through his game. He loves the craft and he's a hard worker, which is the most exciting to see someone from his skill set and his mentality of wanting to win, being a competitor and working hard. And the fact that he's a teenager, this guy is literally the limit for him. And I'm really excited for his near future, as well as his distant future. I'm looking forward to being a part of a lot of wins with him. By the way, Dwight Powell will probably be still here by the time Cooper Flagg's career with the Dallas Mavericks is over. That says more about Dwight Powell than I think anything else. He's just been around forever. But I think the competitor part of Cooper Flag is what actually makes him what he is. The fact that What you see right now is not what he's going to end up being by the end. That's not the end product of Cooper Flag. We will see him learn. We will see him discover new things about his game. We will see him try things and fail. And then we'll see him come back and learn new things about how to adjust and how to guard and how to guard without fouling. That's something we definitely saw him do. There's a couple times early this season. We've even seen him get called on some fouls. And you go, ah, that's just a classic, classic rookie move where your foul reaches up too close on a guy. And all of a sudden he's got to get a little bit more space and then know when to step up to a player. I saw that happen tonight in a play against Siakum. There's like four minutes left in the game or something like that. He's defending Seacom and he stayed back. He had his arms out. And then as soon as Siakum like picks up his dribble and as soon as he like pump fakes, Cooper Flagg knew this is my time to step forward on step forward on him. and he knew he wouldn't get stuck in the moment where a guy bates for a foul,

you know the Chris Paul play where he baits, is my time to step forward on, step forward on him. And he knew he wouldn't get stuck in the moment where a guy bates for a foul,

you know, the Chris Paul play, where he bates for a foul and pump fakes and does all that kind of stuff. He knew exactly when to step up. And I think that's growth from Cooper Flagg is because he's a competitor, because he's trying to always get better all the time. And I think that's just something that is so special about a player, like Dwight said.

He's 18 years old and he's still learning.

He's still learning so much about basketball and he's played so much of it. But learning how to play at this level. It was interesting hearing from Cooper Flagg after the second night of the back-to-back against the Thunder game because there was a real learning moment for him where he's like, man, I've never gone through that. And you can't know what a second of a back-to-back feels like on somebody's body until you actually have gone through it and see what it actually is and see what's going on with it. And so I thought it was just awesome to hear from Dwight Powell. And honestly, to hear about the work ethic, to hear that he's always working on his game, to hear that he's always, you know, he's working on the craft. He's a hard worker, what Dwight said, the mentality of winning and working hard and all that, because Flagg said this about Dwight. It's much more about his actions. I don't think I've ever seen somebody that lifts more than him, just showing up and working hard. He's in the wait room every single day. He's always early to practice, always getting those shots. He really just leads by example, showing the younger guys the right way of doing things, and he just carries himself with such a professional level. So for Dwight, who's always, always, you know, working hard according to Cooper Flag and all that, for him to say that about Cooper Flagg, to pass on the compliment to Cooper flag, I think says something. And a lot of people have asked, well, why is Dwight Powell still on this team? Like, just ship Dwight Powell out.

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