All-Star Dirk Nowitzki Injures Ankle

The Dallas Mavericks, undoubtedly the hottest team in the NBA, won their 60^th game of the season on Wednesday night. With this great accomplishment also came some bad news; Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki left the game near the end of the second quarter with a left ankle injury.

Nowitzki is being checked out on Thursday by a doctor and hopes to return to the lineup soon to help his team. Though the Mavericks looked fairly good without him, they clearly were missing their leader.

The Mavericks beat the Milwaukee Bucks 105-103 even with the absence of Nowitzki for more than half of the game. Jason Terry had a big night to pick up the scoring that was lost with Nowitzki and racked up 27 points. The game was close right up until the end and the Bucks had a chance with their best player, Michael Redd. Redd missed a short shot with about three seconds left in regulation that would have tied the game. "We wanted to try to get the upset," said Redd after the game.

Nowitzki did try to return to the game during the third quarter but only managed to play for a little over a minute before leaving again. He was only one point away from scoring the 15,000^th point of his NBA career.

Dallas seems to have their eye of the goal of 70 wins. This milestone of wins has only been reached once before by one of the greatest teams of all time. The 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls, lead by Michael Jordan, accomplished the astonishing record of 72-10 during the regular season. The Bulls started of the season 41-3. This record seemed almost untouchable until this season, due to the talented Dallas Mavericks.

As of Thursday, the Mavericks are 60-11 on the season. Take in the fact that they started the year off 0-4 and this record seems to be even more amazing. With only 11 games remaining, Dallas cannot reach the milestone set by the Bulls, but they will likely come very, very close. If they hadn't started off the season so poorly, we could have been witnessing the greatest team, record wise, in NBA history.

The Mavericks seem to be the favorite to win the NBA title this year. They lost last year to the surging Miami Heat lead by Finals MVP Dwyane Wade and big man Shaquille O'Neal. Dallas has a 6.5 game lead over the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference. Nowitzki is also in the hunt for the NBA Most Valuable Player Award this season. His good friend, Steve Nash of the Suns has one it the last two seasons.

The Playoffs are looking to be great this year, especially in the later rounds. The Mavericks are hoping to continue their winning ways deep in to the post season.

Cited:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=270328006

http://www.nba.com/history/toptenteams_index.html