Magic’s Wendell Carter Jr. Apologies for Giving Mavs’ Dereck Lively II ‘Pinocchio’ Injury

During the fourth quarter of the Dallas Mavericks’ win over the Orlando Magic on Monday, Dereck Lively II got smacked in the face by Wendell Carter Jr., which resulted in a Flagrant 1 foul.

Dalton Trigg | Jan 30, 2024

Magic’s Wendell Carter Jr. Apologies for Giving Mavs’ Dereck Lively II ‘Pinocchio’ Injury /

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During Monday night’s thrilling 16-point comeback win over the Orlando Magic, Dallas Mavericks rookie big man Dereck Lively II — who will be participating in the 2024 NBA Rising Stars Challenge at All-Star Weekend — had a great game, putting up 20 points on 8-9 shooting to go with 11 rebounds, one steal and one block.

Those 20 points didn’t come easy for Lively, however, as he was smacked in the face by Magic center Wendell Carter Jr. with 2:03 left in the fourth quarter while attempting to score. The blow left Lively face down on the floor with a bloody nose that he had to have plugged.

The play was deemed a Flagrant 1 foul, and since there was a shooting foul on top of that, Lively got a rare opportunity of shooting four free throws to make three. With the Mavs down 119-118, Lively hit two of the four attempts to give his team the lead for good.

After the game, Carter reached out to Lively on X, formerly known as Twitter, to apologize for the inadvertent contact: “My bad bro! Hate seeing players hurt, especially when it was my fault.”

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Lively responded in good humor: “All good just lookin like Pinocchio over here.” This then prompted Luka Doncic to join the conversation where he took credit for giving Lively that nickname.

Stop using what i called you🙄😂😂😂
— Luka Doncic (@luka7doncic) January 30, 2024

Luckily, Lively didn’t sustain a major injury from the incident, and it’s good to see that all parties involved are showing good sportsmanship after the fact. The Mavs will be back in action on Wednesday night when they take on the Minnesota Timberwolves on the road.

Published Jan 30, 2024

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.