Washington Wizards

NBA notebook: Durant joins MVP race

OKLAHOMA CITY - One by one, Kevin Durant has been taking the NBA's biggest names and scoring his way right on past them.

First Kobe. Then LeBron. Next up, Carmelo.

With a tear that began just before Christmas, Durant has climbed into a virtual tie with Denver's Carmelo Anthony for first place in the NBA scoring race. He's had at least 25 points in each of his last 23 games - a feat none of the other superstars has ever accomplished and no one else has ever done at his age.

Durant says he only cares about wins - and those are rising, too. With Durant leading the way, the Oklahoma City Thunder are right in the thick of the playoff race and making that dismal first season seem like ancient history.

"I know that Carmelo's going to be back, LeBron is going to have 40 or 50 points one of these nights and Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and some of those guys are going to continue to score in the high 30s and sometimes 40s and they're just going to easily surpass me," said Durant, who will make his All-Star debut next week. "That's something I try not to worry about, man. I don't even want to think about that."

Durant increased his scoring output in each of the past three months and is now averaging 29.69 points, just five-hundredths of a point behind Anthony, who has missed the past six games with a sprained ankle.

"He's a phenomenal player. He's beautiful to watch," Atlanta coach Mike Woodson said of Durant. "He's kind of an old-school throwback in terms of scoring the ball. This year, I see him trying to defend and he's trying to lead. That's the sign of a player that one day is really going to be a dominant player, probably one of the best players in our league."

That was before the Hawks lost a 106-99 decision to the Thunder. Afterward, he was calling Durant an MVP candidate.

His own coach sees it, too, in the way Durant sets the tone for Oklahoma City with a workmanlike routine that never wavers. It's even evident on his Twitter page, where his post after nearly every win includes the same phrase: "Back to work tomorrow."

"He scores, leads us in rebounds, steals, blocked shots. He does a lot for us," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "But when you get mentioned in groups like that, your team has to win. And we're winning some games, more than we won last year, but we're still not winning at the level that those other teams are."

Rick Barnes, Durant's coach at Texas when he took the college game by storm for a season, saw the same approach in Austin and still gets to witness it during the summer. He said Durant - who'd be a senior this season - turned into a team leader while working toward his degree this past summer. Each day, he'd get the college kids up in the