Raptors at Knicks
The New York Knicks snapped a 10-game slide on Friday, and their reward is a date with the top team in the Eastern Conference. The Knicks will try to earn back-to-back wins for the first time since Oct. 30 and Nov. 2 when they host the Toronto Raptors on Sunday. The Raptors are coming off a 106-94 win over the Indiana Pacers but are just 4-4 over their last eight as they navigate without DeMar DeRozan.
Carmelo Anthony returned to the New York lineup on Friday after sitting out the previous game with a sore knee and led the way with 22 points in the 101-95 triumph over the Boston Celtics. Anthony expects to be dealing with the knee ailment all season, unless he opts to undergo surgery. DeRozan has missed the last seven games and his groin injury is being evaluated on a week-to-week basis by the Raptors, with no timetable for his return.
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, TSN2 (Toronto), MSG (New York)
ABOUT THE RAPTORS (17-6): Greivis Vasquez had been starting in DeRozan’s place but Toronto moved Landry Fields into the spot the last two games, getting an average of six points from the seldom-used Stanford product. Fields or Vasquez in the starting lineup keeps Lou Williams leading the second unit, and the veteran buried five 3-pointers en route to 26 points in Friday’s triumph. Williams is struggling with his consistency and has gone for 19, 4, 17, 5, 26, 6 and 26 points in the seven games since DeRozan went down.
ABOUT THE KNICKS (5-20): Anthony’s ability to fight through the knee injury became even more important to the team when Iman Shumpert went down with a dislocated left shoulder on Friday. Shumpert will miss at least three weeks while fellow shooting guard J.R. Smith is day-to-day after an MRI of his left foot on Saturday revealed a partial tear of the plantar fascia. “I’ll get out every day, try to do some stuff, try to see how it feels," Anthony told reporters before Friday’s game. "If it gets to a point where I just can’t do it then I’ll consider kind of sitting out maybe a week or two weeks or something like that.”
BUZZER BEATERS
1. The teams split four meetings last season, with the Knicks taking the final two.
2. Toronto G Kyle Lowry is 20-of-59 in the last four games.
3. New York F Amar’e Stoudemire is shooting 60.8 percent from the field in seven games this month.