Uneven Knicks visit old friends as they take on Raptors

NEW YORK: The New York Knicks' defense of their NBA Cup title likely ended Friday night.

Their defence of the franchise's first NBA championship since 1973 continues Sunday night, when the Knicks get their first reminder this season of the blockbuster trade that helped make that title possible.

RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley will see their former team again when the Toronto Raptors host the Knicks in the first of back-to-back home games against the reigning champions.

The Knicks opened a four-game road trip Friday with a 106-104 loss to the Indiana Pacers in NBA Cup action.

The Raptors last played Thursday, when they fell to the host Philadelphia 76ers 123-112.

With Friday's loss, the Knicks fell to 0-2 in East Group B play. New York is the only team in the group without a win. No team has advanced from NBA Cup group play with more than one loss.

The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Cup championship game last December before defeating the Spurs in five games in the NBA Finals in June.

On Friday, the Knicks trailed by as many as 13 points in the fourth quarter and nearly overcame an eight-point deficit in the final 64 seconds.

However, Karl-Anthony Towns missed a potential game-tying fallaway jumper at the buzzer.

New York, which lost its first three games this season before winning six of its next seven and then dropping its last two, is off to the worst 12-game start by a defending champion since the Golden State Warriors opened 5-7 in 2022-23 after winning the title the previous season.

The Knicks are averaging 109.8 points per game, 25th in the NBA entering Saturday and nearly seven points per game below their average last season (116.5).

"It's early," forward OG Anunoby said.

"We're not where we want to be, but it's early November. Everything needs to be better."

One of the biggest moves in the construction of the Knicks' championship team was the acquisition of Anunoby, whom New York obtained from the Raptors in exchange for a package headlined by Barrett and Quickley on Dec. 30, 2023.

The Knicks went 20-3 with Anunoby in the lineup over the remainder of the 2023-24 season before reaching the Eastern Conference finals in 2025, their deepest playoff run since 2000.

Anunoby hit the biggest shot of New York's championship run last spring, tipping in Jalen Brunson's errant 3-pointer at the buzzer to cap a 29-point comeback in a 107-106 win over the Spurs in Game 4 of the Finals.

Barrett and Quickley have emerged as franchise cornerstones for the Raptors.

They were the team's second- and fourth-leading scorers, respectively, last season as Toronto ended a three-year playoff drought before falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games in the first round.

The duo have been particularly valuable this season for injury-ravaged Toronto, which has lost three straight and six of its last eight games.

The Raptors' opening-night lineup of Barrett, Quickley, Scottie Barnes, Kawhi Leonard and Jakob Poeltl hasn't been intact since the second game of the season on Oct. 23.

Leonard has missed the last 10 games because of swelling in his left knee, while Barnes has been sidelined for the last four with a left groin/adductor injury. Barnes is questionable for Sunday night.

Barrett is averaging 21.3 points and is the only player to start all 12 of Toronto's games.

Quickley is averaging 17.6 points and has started all 10 games in which he has appeared.

The two combined for 57 points Thursday, when the Raptors squandered a 17-point first-quarter lead and were outscored 72-54 over the middle two periods in their third straight loss.

"When Scottie and Kawhi (are) back, we're going to need these type of performances from those two guys," Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said.

"And I think it raises the level for everybody else." — REUTERS