The Toronto Raptors play the second half of a back-to-back against the New York Knicks.
The pregame narrative: The Raptors have been competitive all season but this isn’t a good spot for them. I’m combining prop picks on Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson with an alternate Knicks spread to make up a +400 SGP.
Check out my Raptors vs. Knicks same-game parlay predictions for Dec. 23.
Raptors vs. Knicks predictions
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Parlay: Knicks -10.5 +Towns over 22.5 points + Brunson over 2.5 threes (+400)
Knicks -10.5 (-182): Toronto played a close game with the Houston Rockets on Sunday and now heads to the Big Apple with a banged-up and fatigued roster.
For the first quarter of the season, the Raptors have been one of the better teams ATS (19-9-1) but there are multiple reasons to like the Knicks here.
- RJ Barrett (questionable) and Jakob Poeltl (out) are important parts of Toronto’s early-season results.
- The Knicks are 8-4 at home while the Raps are 1-12 on the road.
- Four of Toronto’s players logged 31-plus minutes last night.
This is a tough matchup and with that injury report, I expect Toronto to let this game slip way out of reach in the late stages.
Seven of the nine games the Raptors have lost by double-digit points have been away from home.
SGP legs
Towns over 22.5 points (-139): Towns had an off night in his last game but this is a great bounce-back spot.
The big man is averaging 24.5 points per game while shooting an eye-popping 53.0% from the field and 45.9% from 3-point range.
Without Poeltl, the Raptors have limited options — if any — to slow down KAT.
Toronto started 6-foot-9 forward Jonathan Mogbo at centre yesterday and Kelly Olynik and Chris Boucher ate up most of the minutes at the position.
In my opinion, those three guys are unequipped to defend KAT in the low post.
When the Knicks and Raptors first met this season, Towns dropped 24 points on just 13 shots in an efficient scoring performance.
I predict that New York includes its versatile big man more heavily in the game plan this time around.
Toronto allows the ninth-most points to centres per game (22.8), per Fantasy Pros.
Brunson over 2.5 threes (-125): Brunson is a highly efficient 3-point shooter (44.6%) who gets his fair share of volume more often than not.
New York’s point guard averages 2.8 makes on 6.3 attempts per game and he’s currently on a heater.
Brunson cleared this line in five of his past seven games. That includes a 4-for-8 night against the Raptors on Dec. 9. He also dropped seven threes on 10 attempts against the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday.
The all-star PG takes 36.6% of his shots from 3-point range so there should be plenty of volume even if this ends up being a blowout.
Picks made at 9:34 a.m. ET 12/23/2024.
Spencer is a true sports junkie. A graduate of the Sports Journalism program at Centennial College, he first joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2023. He is now a contributing writer. He loves finding the edge to bet on in all sports but has a deep passion for the NBA and UFC. Previous stops include Sportsnet.