There is matinee basketball around the NBA on Saturday as the Toronto Raptors visit the New York Knicks on national television with both teams jockeying for potential playoff positioning in the Eastern Conference. The red-hot Knicks will be favored on the NBA odds.

How to Bet Raptors at Knicks NBA Odds & TV Info

• When: Saturday, 1 PM ET
• Where: Madison Square Garden
• TV: ESPN
• Stream: ESPN app
• Radio:com
• NBA Odds: TBA (Knicks will be favored)

Last Meeting

The teams have split two meetings, and this wraps up the season series. The last met on April 11 also in New York and the Knicks won 102-96 despite blowing an 18-point lead. The Raptors used a 37-15 run to lead by four with seven minutes left, but RJ Barrett hit a three-pointer with the Knicks leading by one with 35 seconds to play to essentially clinch it. The Knicks were led by 26 points from Julius Randle and Barrett had 19. New York had lost nine straight games in the series. Gary Trent Jr. led Toronto with 23 points, while Chris Boucher had 17 points and 14 rebounds.

Why Bet on Toronto? | NBA Betting Lines

Toronto won its fourth in a row Wednesday, 114-103 over the short-handed Nets. Playing at close to full strength for the first time in weeks with the return of veteran guards Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, Toronto made 13 of 24 shots (54%) and outscored the Nets 36-23 in the third quarter.

Lowry, who had been resting for 10 days, had 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists. VanVleet had 17 points, five assists, three rebounds and a steal across 35 minutes. VanVleet had appeared in only one of the past nine games for Toronto while dealing with a hip injury and a one-game suspension.

Lowry had been resting for 10 days but the Raptors brought back all the regulars tonight and got a big win over the Nets. The Raptors are only a 1/2 game back of the Wizards for the No. 10 seed and a shot at a play-in series, so it will be interesting to see if they keep playing the regular in hopes of making a playoff run.

Khem Birch started at center and had eight points, seven rebounds, three assists and a block in 24 minutes. Chris Boucher went down with a left knee injury and will have an MRI so Birch could be looking at a bigger workload going forward.

Boucher suffered the injury early in the fourth quarter when Brooklyn forward Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot landed on Boucher’s foot while the two were competing for a rebound under the Raptors’ net. Throughout those 59 games, Boucher was enjoying the best season of his career. He was averaging career-highs across the board with 13.8 points, 6.7 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and 1.1 assists per game.

A Toronto win Saturday would secure the team’s sixth straight season-series win over New York. The last time the Dinos lost the season series outright vs. the Knicks was in the 2010-11 season.

Why Bet on New York? | NBA Betting Lines

No team is hotter in the NBA than the Knicks, who won their eighth in a row Wednesday, 137-127 in overtime against visiting Atlanta. Julius Randle’s driving layup with eight seconds left in regulation gave New York a 122-119 lead, but Bogdan Bogdanovic hit a 3-pointer with 6.2 seconds left to send the game into overtime. The Knicks scored the first 10 points of the extra session.

Randle hit 11-of-21 shots, 6-of-8 3-pointers and 12-of-13 free throws for 40 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. It was Randle’s second 40-point game over his last four played. Randle also is just the 5th player in Knicks history to average at least 30 points per game during a win streak of 8+ games.

Nerlens Noel took a shot to the mouth and needed stitches but was able to return and finish with nine points, 12 rebounds, three assists and three blocks in 35 minutes. He’s had at least two blocks in 10 straight games and has grabbed double-digit boards in four of his last six.

Rookie Immanuel Quickley and fellow guard Derrick Rose both had 20 points. Elfrid Payton started the game but played just 17 minutes, while Tom Thibodeau turned to Rose and Quickley for more minutes.

Taj Gibson suffered a right eyelid injury on Wednesday and played just nine minutes for four points and three rebounds.  It’s being called a laceration so he’ll be questionable for Saturday’s game. Guard Alec Burks missed his fourth straight game in COVID protocols. He’s averaging 12.6 points this season and probably won’t play Saturday.

The last time the Knicks won eight straight was in 2014, when Randle was in his one-and-done season at Kentucky. The Knicks’ winning streak of eight exceeds the total number of games the Yankees have won so far this season. If the season were to end today, that means the Knicks would be hosting a first-round playoff series.

This is the first time that the Knicks are 4th or higher in the Eastern Conference standings at least 50 games into a season since finishing the 2012-13 season as the 2nd seed. “Fourth place sounds good, but we’re not done yet,” Randle said. “We have a long way to go.”

Expert Prediction

• Knicks 108, Raptors 103

 

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