The Knicks are building something at home.<\/p>\n
A real advantage.<\/p>\n
A fortress.<\/p>\n
With Sunday night\u2019s 116-94 victory over the Raptors, the Knicks (13-6) improved to 10-1 at MSG \u2014 the second-best home record in the NBA, behind only the juggernaut Thunder.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s looking like a big improvement over last season, when the Knicks were just 27-14 at the Garden. <\/p>\n
This season, they\u2019re just destroying the visitors.<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson attempts a shot during the Knicks\u2019 Nov. 30 win over the Raptors. Jason Szenes for the NY Post<\/p>\n
And Sunday was the latest breeze.<\/p>\n
The Knicks led for the final 46 \u00bd minutes, with a balanced scoring attack led by Karl-Anthony Towns\u2019 22 points. <\/p>\n
Six of their players scored at least 13 points. <\/p>\n
Josh Hart continued his hot stretch by stuffing the boxscore, finishing with 20 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists. <\/p>\n
He also led the team with 5 offensive boards.<\/p>\n
Miles McBride defends during the Knicks\u2019 Nov. 30 win over the Raptors. Jason Szenes for the NY Post<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson shot just 6-for-19, but he also drew the defense\u2019s attention and the Knicks didn\u2019t need a top performance from the star.<\/p>\n
Despite the lopsided score, there were a couple of dicey moments in the third quarter. <\/p>\n
Immanuel Quickley, the former Knick, took off in that period with 13 of his 19 points, including a trey that ended with a celebration MSG fans might remember \u2014 the gallop down the sideline. <\/p>\n
Toronto then cut the deficit to 3.<\/p>\n
But the Knicks responded with a 12-0 run to take control. <\/p>\n
Hart, the spiritual leader of the roster, led the charge with 13 points in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
The Raptors never recovered.<\/p>\n
It was, in some ways, a schedule win for the Knicks. <\/p>\n
The Raptors (14-7) are much better than most anticipated, riding Brandon Ingram\u2019s resurgence to first place in the division before Sunday.<\/p>\n
But they were also on the second night of a back-to-back after traveling from Charlotte on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Perhaps not coincidentally, the visitors came out sluggish.<\/p>\n
The Knicks came out firing \u2014 especially Miles McBride, who had 12 points in the opening five minutes.<\/p>\n
They built a 24-point lead early in the second quarter, giving the appearance of a blowout for the home team.<\/p>\n
But the offense went cold with the reserves on the court, namely Jordan Clarkson and Tyler Kolek. <\/p>\n
Karl-Anthony Towns attempts a shot during the Knicks\u2019 Nov. 30 win over the Raptors. Jason Szenes for the NY Post<\/p>\n
The Knicks\u2019 advantage dwindled to 7 points at halftime.<\/p>\n
It fell to 3 in the third quarter. <\/p>\n
Then the Knicks exploded for another home victory.<\/p>\n
The Raptors were playing without RJ Barrett, who sat with a knee sprain.<\/p>\n
The Knicks were again without OG Anunoby, who strained his hamstring over two weeks prior.<\/p>\n
Despite their absences, both sides \u2014 the Raptors and Knicks \u2014 were probably feeling pretty good about their swap roughly two years prior.<\/p>\n
Quickley and Barrett, the two former first-round picks of the Knicks, are big parts of Toronto\u2019s early surge this season and its 14-6 shock record heading into Sunday\u2019s showdown at MSG.<\/p>\n
Quickley earned the starting point guard spot, entering Sunday with averages of 15.8 points, a team-high 6.3 assists and just 1.7 turnovers.<\/p>\n
Barrett, who was injured Sunday with a knee sprain, is the starting two-guard and averaging 19.4 points on 50.6 percent shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose two guys, obviously we got them, they were like 23 at the time, 24,\u201d Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said. \u201cThey grew up a lot since that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last season, it didn\u2019t look so great for the Raptors. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
They were in the draft lottery for a second straight campaign, with questions surrounding both Quickley and Barrett as winning pieces.<\/p>\n
The Raptors team president who executed the trade, Masai Ujiri, was fired in June.<\/p>\n
But Ujiri\u2019s vision is easier to see this season, with the important caveat that it\u2019s still very early. <\/p>\n
Quickley, Barrett, Scottie Barnes and, most importantly, Brandon Ingram are all shining.<\/p>\n
They represent an unexpected hurdle for the Knicks to clear both within their division.<\/p>\n
And on Sunday, it was pretty easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks are building something at home. A real advantage. A fortress. With Sunday night\u2019s 116-94 victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4777,4778,1555,21,9,11,1104,10,319,1265],"class_list":{"0":"post-56739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-jalen-brunson","9":"tag-josh-hart","10":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-toronto-raptors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}