Jordan Is Third in Career Scoring

Michael Jordan of the Washington Wizards scored on a fall-away jump shot against the New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday night to pass Wilt Chamberlain for third place in NBA career scoring.

The basket, which gave Jordan 14 points with a minute left in the first half, put his career scoring at 31,420 points in 1,032nd regular-season games. He scored four more points and finished with 18.

Jamal Mashburn scored 24 points to lead the Hornets, 103-94, and held Jordan to one-for-seven shooting in the second half.

The announced crowd of 18,298, which gave Jordan an enthusiastic welcome when the Wizard starting lineup was announced, applauded heartily when the public address announcer made note of his milestone during the next stoppage in play.

Jordan downplayed his scoring mark.

“It summarizes the effort I’ve given throughout my career. But the thing about stats is they define you when you’re 10 or 20 years past the game,” Jordan said. “While you’re playing, what matters is wins.... Their defense really kind of got us baffled in the second half and we were not able to get into the rhythm we wanted to get into.”

Chamberlain scored 31,419 points in 1,045 regular-season games. Jordan trails Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored 38,387 points, and Utah’s Karl Malone, who has 35,487.

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All-time career scoring leaders in NBA:

Player Points

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar...38,387

Karl Malone ...35,487

Michael Jordan ...31,424

Wilt Chamberlain...31,419

Moses Malone...27,409