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SPORTS A19
                                                                                                                                                    Thursday 9 March 2017

Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki
joins 30,000-point club in NBA 

The Associated Press            tered the game as the         western trip with a victory
DALLAS (AP) — Dirk Nowit-       league leader in points       over pesky Phoenix.
zki scored the 20 points he     and plus/minus score in the   Bradley Beal had 27 points
needed for 30,000 in his        last five minutes of regula-  and John Wall added 25
career in barely more than      tion and overtime.            points and 14 assists in a
a quarter, and the Dallas       Westbrook also finished the   victory that ended the
Mavericks celebrated with       game with nine assists and    Suns’ three-game winning
their second straight easy      made 13 of 16 free throws.    streak, their longest since
home win over the Los An-       Victor Oladipo scored 16      November 2015.
geles Lakers, a 122-111 vic-    points and Enes Kanter        Eric Bledsoe scored 30
tory Tuesday night.             added 11 for Oklahoma         points for the Suns, who
The 7-foot German be-           City, which dropped its       erased a 22-point, first-half
came the sixth NBA player       fourth straight. Oklahoma     deficit, were tied at 110
and the first international     City lost despite shooting    with 5:16 to play and chal-
one to reach the mile-          52 percent.                   lenged the Wizards in the
stone, joining four Hall of     WIZARDS 131, SUNS 127         final two minutes before
Famers and a future one         PHOENIX (AP) — Bojan Bog-     Wall finally clinched it with
in Kobe Bryant. Nowitzki is     danovic scored 29 points,     two free throws with 6.5
one of three to score all       setting a franchise record    seconds to play.
30,000-plus with one team.      for free throws made by go-   Devin Booker scored 25 for
The others are Karl Malone      ing 16 of 16, and Washing-    the Suns, nine in the final 21
(Utah) and Bryant (Lakers).     ton opened a five-game        seconds.q
The 38-year-old Nowit-
zki matched the best first      Los Angeles Lakers forward Larry Nance Jr. (7) defends Dallas
quarter in his 19 seasons       Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) as he shoots during the
by scoring 18 points, and       second quarter of an NBA basketball game in Dallas on Tues-
reached the hallowed            day, March 7, 2017. 
mark on a 15-foot fade-
away jumper from the                                                                                Associated Press
baseline over Larry Nance
Jr. with 10:58 remaining in
the second quarter.
Nowitzki scored all of his 25
points — one shy of his sea-
son high — in the first half
to send the Mavericks to
a 31-point lead in the third
quarter.
This was the Lakers’ first
visit to Dallas since setting
a franchise record with
a 49-point loss, a 122-73
blowout on Jan. 22.
Dallas extended a fran-
chise record with its 14th
straight win over the Lak-
ers, who got a triple-dou-
ble from Julius Randle with
13 points, 18 rebounds and
10 assists in their eighth
straight loss.
TRAIL BLAZERS 126, THUN-
DER 121
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) —
Portland overcame Russell
Westbrook’s career-high
58 points to beat Oklaho-
ma City.
Allen Crabbe scored 23
points, Damian Lillard had
22 and C.J. McCollum 21
for the Trail Blazers, who
won their third straight.
Portland shot 55 percent
from the field.
Westbrook shot 21 of 39,
but just 6 of 15 in the fourth
quarter. Westbrook en-
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