Knicks continue their struggles in Toronto, lose to the Raptors in Sunday matinee

After a strong 30 point blowout on Friday night the Knicks headed north of the border for a home and home against the Raptors. The rapture of defeating the Raptors on Friday after its new acquisitions was pleasant as the team began their first step to a second half playoff push. However, the Knicks are very cold when it comes to playing in Toronto, and made it nine straight losses in the Air Canada Centre with its 111-100 loss Sunday afternoon.

You had to expect that Toronto was going to come out swinging after its embarrassing loss in the Garden on Friday night and came out the gates with strong defense and timely shooting. Leading the Raptors was the “magician” Andrea Bargnani with 28 points and 10 rebounds, adding 3 assists and 3 blocks to his stat line.

Bargnani has been a Knick killer lately, averaging 23 points and 8 rebounds over the course of the home and home.

With the Knicks, it was a tail of two games. Wilson Chandler had a career high 32 points on Friday night but only 2 on Sunday. With Larry Hughes now in the mix Chandler may have to make a statement if he is going to try and sustain that starting roster spot, but playing this sporadically may cost him his job down the line.

Mr. Consistent David Lee put up his nineteenth consecutive double-double with 17 points and 15 rebounds, and leading all scorers was Al Harrington with 31 points (13-21 FG) and 7 rebounds. Nate Robinson also continued his torrid shooting with 18 points and 8 assists. With Nate as of late (OoO a rhyme!) he has been making timely shots in the fourth quarter which is something the Knicks had lacked to start the season. However, when he begins to over-dribble and slow the game down it takes the team out of rhythm, and it began to show midway through the fourth quarter.

It also didn't help that Chris Duhon committed five first quarter turnovers, which is very un-Duhon-esqe.  He finished the game with six turnovers accompanied by 17 points and 7 assists.  His body language did not look very good in the first half and it leaves fans to question if his ankle is bothering him from before the all-star weekend. 

The team had been down double digit points a few times in the game and each time made a run to cut the lead to within four to six points. It seemed that every time the Knicks were knocking on that door the Raptors were able to answer with a big shot and go on another mini run to give them a buffer zone to get the victory.

Sunday also showcased the newest Knicks Wilcox and Hughes. In just under 16 minutes, Hughes went 1-9 from the floor and it looked like his legs were not quite in game shape. He admitted it will take him some time to get back into rhythm as he hasn’t played in a game in just about a month, but only getting minutes will help him gain his confidence back.

Wilcox played 10 minutes and put up 5 points and 5 rebounds. Wilcox will be the ideal bench player for this team as he is a strong finisher and a big body to run with the second unit. He showed his strong finish ability when Nate gave him a bounce pass of a pick ‘n roll and he dunked the ball over the side of his head with some power. We will see how D’Antoni disperses the minutes in the upcoming games.

With these two new players it seems that the Knicks’ coveted first round pick Danilo Gallinari is going to be the most affected as he did not see a single minute of playing time in Sunday afternoon’s loss. With Gallo, he is still young and the coaches will continue to develop him as the player of the future. The Knicks have some experience on the court and with the playoffs about 2.5 games out of reach, the team will play cautiously with Gallo and give him minutes when he is ready.

The Knicks will return home tonight to get ready for the Indiana Pacers on Monday night as part of a three game home stand. The Knicks need to establish a strong home court mentality if they want to make the playoffs, and four of the next five games will give them that opportunity.

The Pacers are bruised up with both Mike Dunleavy and all-star Danny Granger sidelined with injuries and will not be in uniform on Monday night. Not that it should affect the game, but the Knicks will need to take advantage of these injuries and get a win streak going if it wants to see the postseason this year.

A couple other notes. In my last post I said to watch the Nate Robinson video on David Letterman but for some reason the youtube thread did not appear. So I apologize for that inconvenience. Also, I said that Wilcox was playing for his fourth team. Technically the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City so I don’t know if the Sonics and the Thunder can count for two different teams. So for the argument, he has played for three different franchises but four different teams.

I think that sounds better : ) Tomorrow’s game will air on MSG at 7:30 p.m.