Toronto Raptors will look to dominate season series against New York Knicks

The Toronto Raptors face the New York Knicks four times this season. With a pedestrian roster, do the Knicks have any chance at stealing a game or two?

The Toronto Raptors are much better than the New York Knicks. You probably don’t need an article to tell you that. But is Toronto a lock to sweep the regular season series? Not necessarily.

As with any inner-division matchup, the Knicks and Raptors will face off four times this season. The good news for the Knicks (and fans of competitive basketball): Kristaps Porzingis should be back for at least two of the games, perhaps three.

Without Porzingis, and even with him for the most part, the Knicks simply don’t have the firepower to keep up with the Raptors for 48 minutes.

To put it mildly, the Raptors starters are a step ahead of the Knicks. New York has a few quality rotation pieces, but no-one in the realm of Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry.

Still, the starters are not where the Raptors biggest strength lies. It’s their bench. Toronto can go 10-11 players deep without sweating. The Knicks have maybe five rotation-quality players once Kristaps Porzingis comes back – Frank Ntilikina, Tim Hardaway Jr., Courtney Lee, Enes Kanter are the other four. (No offense to Allonzo Trier, Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson who may be there by the season’s end.)

And yet, Toronto is far from a lock to win all four games. Why? Because this is the NBA and weird stuff happens on a nightly basis.

As one of the Raptors most frequent opponents, we decided to break down every aspect of the New York Knicks matchup and give a preview and prediction for all four games.