DALLAS (AP) — Dallas Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg was ruled out for the second half of a 118-109 loss to Denver on Wednesday night after the No. 1 pick sprained his left ankle in the first half Wednesday night.
Flagg was called for a foul while defending against Peyton Watson, and turned the ankle as he fell to the floor with 6:01 left in the second quarter. Flagg limped to the bench and continued to the locker room, but returned for the final 2:35 before the break.
Click to Gallery
Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg walks on the court after briefly leaving to the locker room during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray (27) shoots a basket against Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg (32) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg leaves the court and heads to the locker room during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, right, goes up for a basket against Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
The 19-year-old didn't come of the locker room for the second half before the announcement that he was out for the game. Flagg injured the same ankle two nights earlier, leaving briefly to get it taped before returning and leading Dallas with 27 points in a 113-105 victory over Brooklyn.
“He stepped on someone’s foot,” coach Jason Kidd said. “Last game, he twisted his ankle, too. We decided to hold him (out) for the second half.”
Kidd said he didn't know if Flagg, who wasn't available to reporters after the game, or center Daniel Gafford would play the second game of a back-to-back against Utah on Thursday night. Gafford was ruled out during the second half against Denver with a right ankle sprain that has bothered him most of the season.
Flagg was playing his 40th game, three more than his only season as a Duke standout when he led the Blue Devils to the Final Four as The Associated Press men's player of the year.
Flagg missed just one game in the first 41 of the Mavericks, due to an illness in November. The Rookie of the Year contender is averaging 18.8 points and 6.3 rebounds.
Before Gafford exited, the Mavericks were already without their top two frontcourt players in 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis and young center Dereck Lively II. Davis is expected to be sidelined about six weeks with ligament damage in his left hand, and Lively is out for the season following foot surgery.
“This is a hard time for us,” Kidd said. “We have had a lot of injuries. … We have been hurt since day one of training camp. This is the norm. The character has been displayed in tough times of being down. But we keep fighting.”
AP NBA: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NBA
Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg walks on the court after briefly leaving to the locker room during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray (27) shoots a basket against Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg (32) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg leaves the court and heads to the locker room during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, right, goes up for a basket against Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
ROME (AP) — With Pope Leo XIV's first big crisis looming, the Vatican on Wednesday issued a final warning to a breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics that their planned consecration of bishops without papal consent constitutes a schismatic act that incurs automatic excommunication.
Leo is praying for enlightenment so that the leaders of the Society of St. Pius X “may reconsider the extremely grave decision they have made,” said a statement from the Vatican’s doctrine czar, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.
The statement appeared to be a last-ditch effort to head off the group’s planned July 1 consecrations of four new bishops. If they go ahead, they will amount to the gravest challenge to Leo’s authority to date, as he seeks to heal divisions with traditionalist Catholics that worsened during the Pope Francis pontificate.
The SSPX, as the group is known, was founded in Écône, Switzerland in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, which among other things allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.
The group, which celebrates the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, first broke with Rome in 1988, after its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four other bishops, and the group today still has no legal status in the Catholic Church.
Yet the group has continued to grow in the decades since that original schismatic act, with schools, seminaries and parishes around the world and branches of priests, nuns and lay Catholics who are attached to the traditional Latin Mass.
The growth poses a real threat to Rome since it amounts to a parallel Catholic church. Today it counts two bishops, 733 priests, 264 seminarians, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.
The current SSPX superior, Rev. Davide Pagliarani, announced earlier this year that new bishops would be consecrated July 1 to tend to the faithful, arguing that the SSPX's two remaining aging bishops can no longer minister to such a global reality.
The Vatican invited Pagliarini for talks, but the same theological and practical problems that have prevented rapprochement for 50 years seemingly left the two sides at an impasse.
In recent comments on the SSPX website, Pagliarani reiterated the need for the new bishops. He expressed satisfaction that his announcement had triggered debate about what the SSPX considers to be a crisis afflicting the church, including religious pluralism and confusion about the faith.
“Now, what is at stake today is not an opinion, nor a sensibility, nor a preferential option, nor a particular nuance in the interpretation of a text, but the faith and morals that a Catholic must know, profess, and practice in order to save his soul and reach paradise,” he said.
The looming consecrations, which would incur automatic excommunications, have created the first tangible crisis for Leo, who has sought to pacify relations with Catholic traditionalists that worsened under Francis after the Argentine pope cracked down on the spread of the old Latin Mass.
Francis in 2021 reimposed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Pope Benedict XVI had relaxed in 2007. Francis said he was reversing his predecessor because Benedict’s reform had become a source of division in the church and been exploited by conservative Catholics opposed to Vatican II.
But the move riled Francis’ conservative critics and it became one of the most divisive acts of his 12-year papacy, such that Leo began his pontificate promising to heal divisions.
While the SSPX is out of communion with the Holy See, plenty of Catholic traditionalists who are loyal to Rome and opposed Francis' crackdown are sympathetic to the SSPX plight and are watching how Leo handles the challenge.
Rorate Caeli, a traditionalist blog that has closely followed the issue, said Francis' crackdown, known by the Latin name of the document, Traditionis Custodes, actually created the “crisis” that the SSPX today laments.
“Traditionalists fully understand the need for respect for authority; but we cannot have both at the same time: a stated will to destroy the traditional Roman Liturgy forever (Traditionis custodes) and a complete prohibition of means to salvage that,” Rorate Caeli wrote Wednesday about the threatened SSPX excommunications.
“If the Holy and Apostolic See really wants to show the world its peaceful and loving purpose, it cannot just punish: it has to make clear that Traditional Catholics are once again welcomed and loved in the church,” by going back to the status quo before Francis' crackdown.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
A Swiss Guard stands as dark clouds hang over, during Pope Leo XIV's weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV, flanked by his secretary Edgard Ivan Rimaycuna Inga, delivers his blessing at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV blesses a little girl as he arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
