Griffin Wong breaks down his analysis, prediction, and pick for Knicks at Nets on Friday.

Two months ago, the New York Knicks were in dire straits, having lost nine of their prior 11 games headed into a matchup at Madison Square Garden across their crosstown rival Brooklyn Nets. The game was never competitive; New York took an 18-6 lead and never looked back, winning by a franchise-record 54 points and kickstarting an eight-game winning streak. The Knicks have built on that momentum and remain contenders headed into the postseason.

The teams will rematch tonight at 7:40 p.m. ET at the Barclays Center in what will be their final matchup of the season. New York will have three more games against lottery-bound teams before a gauntlet of playoff teams to end the season, while Brooklyn will have a mixed of contenders and non-contenders to conclude its schedule.

Both teams have fairly substantial injury questions. Of the Knicks’ rotation players, Josh Hart (knee) joins Miles McBride (core) on the sidelines, and Karl-Anthony Towns (personal) is questionable. Meanwhile, for the tanking Nets, Noah Clowney (wrist), Egor Dëmin (foot), Terance Mann (illness), Michael Porter Jr. (hamstring), and Day’Ron Sharpe (thumb) are all out.

Even though it is technically on the road and could be without Towns, New York is a 17.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-1800 on the Moneyline), its most lopsided point spread of the season. The point total is set to 214.5. Meanwhile, Brooklyn is +1000 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down the Battle of the Boroughs and offer a prediction.

New York Knicks at Brooklyn Nets preview, prediction

Despite opening the second half of the season with a loss to the Detroit Pistons, the Knicks have been pretty solid since the All-Star break, going 10-5 despite Mikal Bridges and Jalen Brunson having the occasional off shooting night. New York’s lone trade deadline acquisition, backup point guard Jose Alvarado, has been excellent, as the Knicks have a plus-20.1 net rating in his 306 minutes. New York looks likely to finish exactly where it did last season — third in the East — and it has the third-best odds of winning the conference.

The Nets, meanwhile, are in full-on tank mode. They’ve won just twice since the All-Star break — though one came against the East-leading Detroit Pistons — and had taken a cautious approach with the oft-injured Porter before eventually shutting him down. As a result, Brooklyn has had plenty of minutes to give to young players, including last summer’s 26th and 27th overall picks, Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf. The results have been shaky: it scored just 24 points in the first half of Wednesday’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the fewest first-half points by any team in more than a decade. The Nets currently have the league’s third-worst record, putting them in line to potentially land one of A.J. Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Cam Boozer.

Knicks at Nets pick, best bet

Hart has had a net-negative on-off impact this season, so despite his well-rounded game, his absence shouldn’t impact the game too much. However, if Towns ends up missing the game, it could be a big deal; while the big man hasn’t had his best season, he’s been a lot more solid as of late, averaging 20.9 points and 11.6 rebounds per game on 59-43-84 shooting splits since the All-Star break. Critically, even though the Knicks have one of the league’s best backup centers in Mitchell Robinson, Towns’ offensive versatility means the team has been 3.4 points per 100 possessions better with him on the court, the second-best on-off mark among the team’s starters. In particular, New York’s offense has slipped somewhat without Towns, though that’s partially a function of his spending 1,233 of his 2,031 minutes sharing the court with the offense-oriented Brunson.

With or without Towns, though, the Knicks’ defense should be good. Since the All-Star break, they rank fourth in defensive rating, allowing the sixth-fewest attempts in the restricted area and the lowest percentage on such shots, and they could be even better inside if Towns misses the game, given that he ranks in just the third percentile in rim contests per game. They should definitely have an advantage in interior play over Brooklyn, which has finished at the league’s lowest rate since the All-Star break despite getting downhill fairly frequently. The Nets’ rim protection has also been shoddy, and they’ll be without Clowney, who ranks in the 92nd percentile in contests at the rim.

With or without Towns, New York should clean up the glass. The Knicks rank among the league’s top five in rebounding percentage and have been even better with Towns off the floor, while Brooklyn ranks in the bottom five and has collapsed without Sharpe. This young Nets team also has major turnover issues, and New York has been one of the league’s best transition teams, especially since acquiring Alvarado. Brooklyn also struggles to draw fouls, which could help the occasionally undisciplined Towns stay on the floor.

There are still a few areas that the Knicks could clean up; since the All-Star break, they’ve allowed the ninth-most wide-open threes per game (the second-most of any team currently in the playoff picture), and the Nets have benefited from less defensive shooting luck. Neither team has done a very good job generating wide-open looks as of late, though New York’s raw shooting talent suggests that it’s due to benefit from some offensive shooting luck soon, given that it employs three of the league’s top 50 players by three-point percentage over expectation (Brunson, Towns, and Bridges). The Nets’ lone qualified shooter who’s making more of his threes than expected — Porter — is absent.

Home-court advantage shouldn’t be much of a factor, since it’s likely that Barclays Center will be flooded with blue-and-orange-clad Knicks supporters. That allows this game to be analyzed from a neutral-court perspective, and New York is simply better at every facet of basketball, with or without Towns. A 17.5-point spread is aggressive, but in the 23 times this season that a team has been favored by 16.5 or more points, it has covered 10 times, so it’s definitely possible.

Best bet: New York Knicks -17.5 (-110)