{"id":525202,"date":"2026-01-18T13:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T13:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/525202\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T13:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T13:20:09","slug":"kevin-durant-needs-17-points-to-pass-dirk-nowitzki-for-6th-on-nbas-all-time-scoring-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/525202\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant needs 17 points to pass Dirk Nowitzki for 6th on NBA\u2019s all-time scoring list"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets<\/a> star Kevin Durant<\/a> is on the brink of another historic milestone, and there\u2019s a good chance he will reach it Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Durant currently has 31,544 regular-season points in his NBA career. He needs just 17 more to pass Dallas Mavericks legend Dirk Nowitzki and claim the No. 6 spot on the NBA\u2019s all-time scoring list.<\/p>\n

During his first season in Houston, Durant has already passed another all-time great in scoring. Earlier this month, he moved into seventh place, passing Wilt Chamberlain in a road loss against the Portland Trail Blazers.<\/p>\n

M<\/b>ORE ON KD: <\/b>\u2018Damn right\u2019: Kevin Durant reaches 31,000 career points in Rockets\u2019 blowout 117-98 win vs. Suns<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Sunday night, the Rockets will host the New Orleans Pelicans at Toyota Center. Any Houston fan hoping to witness history should know this: Durant\u2019s odds of reaching 17 points are high.<\/p>\n

Across his 37 games played with the Rockets this season, Durant has scored fewer than 17 points just three times.<\/p>\n

Conversely, KD has scored 30 or more points 14 times. One of those outings came in the Rockets\u2019 first matchup against New Orleans this year, when he poured in 32 points in an overtime loss.<\/p>\n

Those high-scoring outbursts have only become more frequent as of late. Durant is having his highest-scoring month of the season in January, averaging 28.7 points per game on 50% shooting from the field through nine appearances. He has surpassed the 17-point mark in all nine of those contests.<\/p>\n

Still, the Rockets have not had the best month as a team. They are 4\u20135 so far in 2026, including a 1\u20134 stretch in which each of the four losses came against teams below .500. That skid has them sitting at 24\u201315 on the season and holding the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

Even so, there\u2019s no getting around the fact that the Pelicans have struggled mightily. They own the worst record in the NBA at 10\u201334 and have won just two of their last 14 games.<\/p>\n

New Orleans does have two forwards averaging 22 points per game in Zion Williamson and Trey Murphy III, but the team\u2019s dreadful defense often renders its offensive production moot. The Pelicans allow more than 122 points per game (28th in the NBA) and nearly 15 three-pointers per contest (29th).<\/p>\n

Sunday night\u2019s game is scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m. Forward Tari Eason is listed as a game-time decision due to an ankle injury he suffered last week.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant is on the brink of another historic milestone, and there\u2019s a good chance…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":525203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[1339,4345,3136,8751,3359,1260,50,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-525202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-kd","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115916310031723670","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}