Dirk Nowitzki moves into sixth place on all-time scoring list

In a moment that transcended basketball, Dirk Nowitzki passed Shaquille O’Neal for sixth place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list early in the second quarter, knocking down a mid-range jumper on a pass from J.J. Barea.

Mavericks: Nowitzki is eighth on the combined NBA-ABA scoring list, behind No. 6 Julius Erving and No. 7 Moses Malone….

Although he’s been plenty efficient, it will be tremendously hard for Nowitzki to amass the more than 2,800 points necessary to slip past Wilt as he enters the twilight of his career.

When those names were called off to Nowitzki after Wednesday’s victory, he interrupted the questionnaire, smiled and said: “That sounds pretty good, huh?”

– Nowitzki on the milestone: “It’s a dream come true”.

“I have never seen a team shoot 77 percent from three in a half, maybe a quarter, but they were extremely hot”.

James scored nine points in the fourth quarter.

“I wish things were different, I wish it would have worked out differently but I can’t control that and I can just move forward”.

Nowitzki achieved the feat during the Mavericks’ road game against Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday night.

Dallas Mavericks guard Deron Williams didn’t play in his homecoming game in Brooklyn. You know, we had a great mixture of guys in the second half that came in and gave us energy. The Mavericks have been exchanging wins and losses for the past couple of weeks and rode J.J. Barea’s career-high 32 points to a 119-118 overtime victory in Brooklyn on Christmas Eve.

Young, who is shooting a team-high 51.8% from the field and leads the team with 190 defensive rebounds, seemed relentless on Wednesday night, contributing power dribbles, neat putbacks, crafty steals and one dunk. “We had a couple of good defensive plays – Thad blocking Barea was one – and we had 15 offensive rebounds, which really helped us…we got the efforts we needed, extra efforts on loose balls, but somebody had to lose, and unfortunately, it was us”. Dirk Nowitzki, 37, would need to play at least another two full seasons to match or surpass Chamberlain’s tally of points.

After more than 1,400 NBA total games, it remains one of basketball’s cleanest and simplest truths: When Dirk Nowitzki catches and takes a clean look, it barely matters if you get your hand up. Williams (Illinois) was hurt in the second half of the Mavericks’ 103-99 loss at Toronto on Tuesday night.

“But we found a way”. Barea’s career-high scoring night is certainly worthy of note.

The run was behind the lead of Joe Johnson, who scored 10 points in the quarter and two huge threes from Bojan Bogdanovic. Deron Williams isn’t a villain, nor should anyone think of him as one; we’re not talking about a player that stopped showing up to practices, got into fights with teammates, or killed small animals for pleasure.