The Knicks took an 18-point lead over the Raptors early in this game, only to cough it up and need to scratch out a win late. And who else to bring the Knicks a home win than RJ Barrett, the Knicks’ clutch king of late?

Prologue

The Knicks were coming off perhaps their most cathartic win of the season — an absolute slog for three quarters, with the Knicks consistently trailing by double digits, which turned into an RJ Barrett masterclass in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Tonight, a matchup against a team better than their record — the struggling Raptors, whose will-they/won’t-they sell/buy at the trade deadline encapsulated the confusion nature of their season, entered with a +0.6 net rating, eighth in the conference, despite a 21-32 record. Toronto is banged up and missing key pieces — even outside of Kawhi Leonard. Onetime potential future Knick Fred VanVleet was ruled out with a hip injury, key starter OG Anunoby was ruled out for rest, and Kyle Lowry was a game-time decision.

Prelude

Oh, to be Alex’s pregame coverage. So young, so naive; so full of hope. So optimistic about Immanuel Quickley starting at point guard for the New York Knicks.

Pain.

Chapter 1

Reggie Bullock, who was 0-for-9 from three in his previous game vs. the Raptors this season, got the Knicks started in the first quarter with a sweet steal on a cross-court pass for a fast break dunk.

The Knicks looked eager to run early, visibly pushing up the floor to get the Raptors on their heels. Elf was dishing, too!

Julius Randle came out looking fresh after going scoreless in the first half vs. Memphis on Friday — as a matter of fact, all five starters scored within the first six minutes of this game. Look at this filth from CornRandle, who was getting MVP chants from the MSG faithful:

After two fouls, Barrett was relegated to the bench, which thankfully had no impact later on.

The defense from the Knicks was phrenetic — after a 47-point first quarter in their previous matchup, Toronto was held to just 16 points on 5-21 shooting in the first of this game. Nerlens Noel and Taj Gibson were constantly clogging up driving lanes in the pick-and-roll, and after getting dominated on the glass by Jonas Valanciunas in their previous game, allowed just two offensive rebounds in the quarter.

Chapter 2

The second quarter was opened by some actually very nice-looking post defense by Obi Toppin in his first minute of the game, followed by Derrick Rose getting fouled on a three. Nick Nurse is a former Coach of the Year with a championship ring, by the way.

Kyle Lowry gave D-Rose some good work on the other end, raining a pull-up three and getting a foul on a crafty drive to the cup. 

Obi continued his strong play through the early quarter, gobbling up rebounds and showing nice awareness on this pretty cleanup:

Meanwhile, the Knicks got increasingly frustrated with the reffing across the quarter, with Quickley throwing the ball out of bounds on more than one occasion when he’d normally get one of *his* calls. One interesting throughline for his career will be what he looks like when the tricks aren’t tricking.

Foul trouble didn’t keep Thibs from getting RJ right back in the game, and the blossoming sophomore treated his coach to a pretty right-handed and one.

(Don’t say that looks like James Harden… don’t say that looks like James Harden…)

The Knick defense continued to feast on Pascal Siakam, leaving his jumpers to air and clang, and blitzing his dribble moves for stops and turnovers.

Interlude

Man, what a pretty first half. The Knicks weren’t even hitting shots — they were 5-21 from outside — but seemed in control essentially from the whistle. Their defense was moving at lightning speeds, racking up four steals and holding Toronto to 30% (!) from the field after they shot 62% as a team in their previous game against Cleveland.

Julius was back in his bag all half, leading the team in points and assists and sporting a +16; really encouraging to see after a down few outings.

Chapter 3

Yes, same starting five in the second half.

RJ wasted no time exerting an impact, with a couple of absolutely dashing dishes to Nerlens, as well as another corner three. Does anyone actually ever expect these not to go in recently?

However, the Raptors slowly inched their way back, cutting things to six with a 16-4 run at about 4:30 left. The Knicks again showed an inability to attack a zone, passively swinging the ball across the perimeter and lazily throwing it into easy steals. 

Derrick Rose hit a big shot and RJ had another nice wraparound to Noel, his third of the quarter, to stop the bleeding.

Then the ceiling started leaking? Bad vibes! And also a 14-minute delay!

Once the storm was quelled, the Raptors put their collective foot on the gas, cutting the lead to two after a 10-0 run led by some red-hot shooting from Gary Trent Jr.

Like all great stories, was this a late setback for the protagonist to set up the beautiful bounce-back?

Chapter 4

A Kevin Knox sighting! Thibs immediately pressed a rotation button to start the fourth, electing to give Knox his first look of the game, despite a nice first half from Obi. Wonder what the thought process was there.

The bleeding didn’t stop, though — the Raptors took their first lead of the game at 81-80.

Alec Burks’ struggles continued, missing his first five field goals before getting a wild off-balance floater to go with 8:30 remaining. On the other end, Malachi Flynn decided to erupt from downtown, after having only 17 3-point makes in his NBA career. Nice!

The refs, though, decided they didn’t like that either, with a very curious overruling of this three multiple minutes later:

This was a huge swing, turning a 7-point deficit into four.

Meanwhile, Randle’s first half success did not carry over — he had zero points in the second half until heading to the line with 4:31 to go.

*load file clutchburks.exe*

After a beautiful RJ drive and dish, Alec rained a straight-on three before getting to the line on the next possession, putting the Knicks up a still-tenuous four with 2:43 remaining. He played point down the stretch, running pick-and-roll and finding Randle on a nice cut for a jam.

After Kyle Lowry cut the lead back to one, RJ Barrett did it again. Did you expect anything else? 

A couple of CRAZY plays in the final minute. clutchburks.exe encountered a fatal error, as he inexplicably threw the ball to Toronto on the 2-for-1, only for Pascal Siakam, who struggled all night long, to commit a double dribble on the break. Both teams had a double dribble in this game!

In the end, Julius was able to ice it at the line for a not-so-comfortable 6-point win. Somehow, the Knicks covered the spread (-4)!

Epilogue

As fantastic as the first half was, the second half — wasn’t. The outside shots didn’t go down all game, but a big thing to watch is the Knicks’ continued struggles against zone defense, which gave them fits in the disastrous third quarter.

Some interesting tidbits:

• After basically being pulled from the Grizzles game after a tough performance, Elfrid Payton actually came out and looked good in the first half tonight: 5-7 from the field with three assists. However, Thibs went to the same strategy, benching Elf down the stretch in favor of Point Burks (with ambivalent results). Payton finished under 20 minutes for the second straight game, and third time already in April.

• I’m still curious what was behind the low-leverage, but intentional decision to use Knox instead of Obi in the second half after some nice Obi minutes in the second quarter. They each finished with just five minutes for the game.

• IQ really just didn’t seem to make an impact tonight after a great outing on Friday — he was 1-8 from the field and had zero assists. Clyde even commented at one point that he looked like he was aiming his shots. On the bright side, he continued to flex his underrated rebounding skills, grabbing five boards in his 18 minutes.

• Randle had a pretty frustrating second half — one possession holding the ball for nearly the entire 24 seconds before turning it over (he had five on the night). He’s struggled of late in clutch situations, and has forced it a bit.

• Speaking of clutch situations, this man:

• The hot streak that’s so long that… maybe it’s not a hot streak; maybe it’s just the player! RJ didn’t wait until the fourth to be efficient tonight, hitting seven of his too-few 12 attempts and continuing to absolutely light it up on corner threes. The brightest spot of the game for him, though, might have been his playmaking — he really took over on the dribble penetration during the second half, throwing some impressive wraparound passes and kick-outs. He finished with five assists and zero turnovers, just the third time he’s done that in his young career. You really can’t ask for more than what he’s been able to do recently.

• Shout out to Nerlens, too — he was an absolute menace tonight, grabbing 13 rebounds and four blocks after getting somewhat bodied by the Memphis bigs on Friday night.

Back to .500! The craziness won’t let up anytime soon — the Knicks will be back in action against the shorthanded Lakers on Monday.