Mailman Delivers With a Milestone

SALT LAKE CITY —  Karl Malone’s first eight points carried him past Wilt Chamberlain. The Mailman’s next 23 carried the Utah Jazz past the Toronto Raptors.

Malone moved past Chamberlain for second place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list Tuesday night, hitting a scoop shot in the lane with 4:58 to play in the second quarter of a 98-84 Jazz victory.

“Wilt Chamberlain was a pioneer in this league, a guy I have great respect for,” Malone told a swarm of reporters on the Delta Center floor. “I didn’t sleep at all today. I had the worst nap ever.”

Malone finished with 31 points, giving him 31,443 in his 16-year career. Chamberlain scored 31,419 in 14 seasons. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the league’s all-time scoring leader with 38,387.

“To be able to play every game with guys who believed in me, that’s what really means a lot,” Malone said. “That, and the people here in Utah have accepted me, the good with the bad.”

Malone, the most prolific power forward in NBA history and a 16-year fixture for the Jazz, went into the game needing eight points to pass Chamberlain.

It was his night. He added 12 rebounds and three blocked shots, and the only lowlight was when he was ejected with less than one minute to play after getting his second technical for arguing with referee Marc Davis.

“My biggest fear was that I would get the record but we wouldn’t win the game,” he said.

It took a while for Malone to get going. He missed his first shot and dropped a pass from John Stockton out of bounds, his only touches in the first five minutes.

He finally made a 22-foot jumper midway through the first quarter, then hit from 18 feet on the left wing. Later in the quarter, he got a fastbreak layup on a feed from Bryon Russell.

After sitting most of the second quarter, Malone came in to cheers. Flashbulbs twinkled in the crowd when he threw in a jumper for the apparent historic points but Toronto was called for an illegal defense, negating the basket.

The points to surpass Chamberlain came, naturally, on a feed from Stockton, Malone’s longtime teammate and the point guard who made so many of his baskets possible.

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Point Men

A look at how Karl Malone compares to the top scorers alltime:

Note: Malone ranks eighth on the career scoring average list.