HOUSTON -- Dirk Nowitzki scoffed at the notion that hes playing as well now as he did when he led the Dallas Mavericks to a title in 2011. China Jerseys Wholesale. He will, however, concede that at age 35 hes having a pretty good season. Nowitzki scored 31 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter, to lead the Mavericks to a 111-104 win over the Houston Rockets on Monday night. He joked that his big night was simply luck before getting serious and discussing the work he puts in off the court. "Hopefully I can light it up a couple of more years and then slowly fade away," he said, breaking into a huge smile. Dallas coach Rick Carlisle isnt surprised at what Nowitzki, who is averaging 21.5 points a game, is doing for his team this season. "Hes the great Dirk Nowitzki," Carlisle said. "Hes one of the great players in the history of the game." Nowitzki missed the first 27 games of last season after knee surgery and the Mavericks missed the playoffs for the first time since the 1999-2000 season. He feels like his game is good now and his injury is behind him, but he wants to do more. "The driving the ball is whats missing a little now," he said. "I do a lot of one or two dribble and then up, but I want to get back to driving some more to the basket and get to the foul line. I dont think Im in 11 shape, but compared to the last two years I feel a lot better. The right knee is great and I feel better." Nowitzkis performance on Monday night gave him 25,629 career points, which moved him past Alex English for 13th place in scoring in NBA history. Houston cut the lead to six after a 3-pointer by Aaron Brooks with about 3 1/2 minutes left, but Nowitzki knocked down consecutive baskets to push the Mavericks lead to 107-97. Houston coach Kevin McHale was frustrated that his team was unable to slow Nowitzki down. "We tried a bunch of different stuff," McHale said. "We tried showing and coming back. We tried staying on there. We tried running at him. Nothing seemed to work." Dwight Howard had 29 points and 15 rebounds for the Rockets, who were playing their second straight game without leading scorer James Harden, who was out with a sprained left ankle. Dallas started the final period by using a 9-4 run powered by three 3-pointers, including two from Jae Crowder, to push the lead to 95-82. Jeremy Lin, who has been out since Dec. 13 because of back spasms, scored 20 and Chandler Parsons had 21 for Houston. Dallas outscored Houston 17-10 over the last five minutes of the third quarter to stretch a one-point lead into an 86-78 advantage entering the fourth quarter. Vince Carter scored seven points during that time and Crowder added five. Monta Ellis had 18 points for Dallas, Carter had 16 and Jose Calderon added 15 points with five assists. With the speedy Harden out, the Rockets relied on their inside game and outscored the Mavericks 60-32 in the paint. But the Mavericks had the advantage from 3-point range, where they made 11 to Houstons seven 3-pointers. "They hit a lot of tough shots tonight, especially in the second half," Howard said. "They shot great the whole game. When a team is shooting that good they are tough to beat." A 15-1 spurt by Dallas to open that second half erased a seven-point halftime deficit and gave the Mavericks a 65-58 lead with eight minutes left in the third quarter. Nowitzki led the way in that stretch, making seven points including a 3-pointer. The Rockets came out flat to start the third, missing six shots and turning the ball over twice in the first few minutes of the quarter. The Rockets finally snapped out of their offensive slump after that, using a 10-4 run to get within 69-68 with about 5 1/2 minutes left in the quarter. Parsons made four quick points near the end of it before Howard put an exclamation point on the run with a nifty sideways alley-oop dunk. Houston led by one point about six minutes before halftime and used an 11-2 run over the next four minutes to extend its lead to 52-42. Howard got things going in that span by scoring six straight points and capped the run with a free throw. The Rockets led 57-50 at halftime. NOTES: Houston announced during the game that guard Patrick Beverley had surgery on Monday to repair a fracture in his right hand and will be out 4-6 weeks. ... Calderon has scored more than 10 points in 18 of his last 20 games. ... Houston has scored at least 60 points in the paint in three of its last four games. cheap jerseys . The Basque club improved to four points better than fifth-place Villarreal in the duel for the last Champions League qualifying place. Celta should have come away with more from the high tempo game. wholesale jerseys . Miller finished in two minutes, 6.09 seconds, one day before the first medal race on the Alpine schedule. The 36-year-old American also turned in the top time in Thursdays opening training session. BEIJING -- Kevin Koes Calgary rink inched closer to a playoff spot at the mens world championship of curling, improving to 7-3 in the round-robin portion of the tournament with a 11-5 rout over Germany on Thursday. Koe took an early 9-1 lead through four ends and sailed home with the win over Germanys Johnny Jahr to assure at least a tiebreaker berth on the final day of round-robin play. The Canadians will complete the round robin with a game against Scotlands Ewan MacDonald (3-6) later Thursday. A win in that game would nail down, at worst, a berth in the Page 3-4 game. A victory, combined with a loss from Japans Yusuke Morozumi (7-3) would put Canada in the Page playoff 1-2 game against Norways Thomas Ulsrud. "Its good news," said Koe. "Weve come through the three-four game a few times with this team (including the 2010 Tim Hortons Brier and the 2014 Alberta mens championship). We just have to get in there. And once we get in there, thats usually when our best games show up. "Were pretty much down to our last life here, so we have to come out against a good Scotland team thats probably going to be playing pretty loose, and take care of business." Canada took control early on against Germany. Koe made a precision come-around tap to sit four and block off the path to the four-foot. Cheap Tennessee Titans Jerseys. German last-rock thrower Felix Schulze needed to make a hit-and-roll for a single, but he wrecked on a guard to give Canada a stolen four-ender. "That nice little hack-weight shot Kevin made in the second, that was good for his confidence," noted lead Nolan Thiessen. "Weve wrecked a few times on those, so to make one and really put the pressure on him to make a really good shot against four early in the game is good. "Youll get mistakes when that happens, and it got us a little bit of mojo and hopefully we can carry it over this afternoon." After Germany was forced to a single in the third, Canada put the victory away with Koe drawing for four in the fourth end. The Germans would cut into the lead with three in the fifth and one more in the sixth, but Canada scored two in the seventh to prompt handshakes. The Germans (4-6) are out of playoff contention. Norway locked up first place Thursday morning with a 6-4 win over Pete Fenson of the United States (3-7), while Sweden (6-4) took an 11-4 win over Japan. A Japanese victory would have all but locked up a spot in the one-two game. In the other game, Russias Evgeny Arkhipov (2-8) took two in the 10th end for a 6-5 win over Denmarks Rasmus Stjerne (2-8). cheap jerseyscheap jerseys from china ' ' '
