Knicks Return Favor, Eliminate Raptors from Postseason Contention

Following Saturday’s narrow defeat to Toronto at The Garden, the Knicks used a balanced attack to hold off the Raptors for a 112-103 road victory in the second game of a home-and-home set. New York snapped a four-game losing streak and won for the first time in Toronto since 2004.

“We’re playing for our pride right now and we’re just trying to win as many of these last five or six games as we can and build for next year,” Al Harrington said after the Knicks notched their 30th win of the season.

Wilson Chandler led seven Knicks in double figures with 17 points, while David Lee added 16 points and 10 rebounds. But it was the play of Harrington and Quentin Richardson in the second half that helped the Knicks built a 16-point lead to start the fourth quarter and hold on to avoid a late letdown.

New York, which watched a 12-point advantage disappear in Saturday’s 102-95 defeat to the Raptors, missed its first seven shots of the final period, allowing Toronto to cut it to seven with a 9-0 run. But Richardson responded with one of his four 3-pointers, Nate Robinson followed with a jumper and the Knicks ran away with the win.

“Something that we struggled with all year is finishing games,” Chris Duhon said. “I know we only have a few games left, but what we want do is do as good a job as we can of fixing the areas that we struggled with throughout the year.”

Harrington, the Knicks’ leading scorer this season, scored seven of his 12 points in the fourth quarter and took control in the closing minutes with several key plays on both ends of the floor. In the final three minutes alone, he hit a 3-pointer, took a crucial charge, tipped in a missed layup and sealed the win with a breakaway dunk.

“I just wanted to make big plays,” said Harrington, who also had 10 rebounds.

Richardson, meanwhile, scored 10 of his 16 points in the third quarter to give Harrington the opportunity to be the hero down the stretch. The longtime Knicks swingman helped New York’s bench outscore Toronto’s 41-14. His 4-for-7 3-point shooting guided the Knicks to 52 percent from beyond the arc to tie the season series with Toronto.

“We played just as well in New York and shot the ball just as well, but we just had a lapse where our defense went down and we let them get a lead and we weren’t able to overcome it,” Duhon said.

The Raptors ended New York’s playoff hopes on Saturday as they handed the Knicks their 11th loss in the 12 games after winning three straight road games to move a half-game out of eighth place. But the Knicks played the spoiler role themselves on Sunday by snapping the Raptors’ six-game winning streak, eliminating them from the postseason.

The Knicks will look to play spoiler to some of their remaining opponents’ postseason hopes as well, beginning Tuesday in Chicago against the seventh-place Bulls followed by Wednesday’s home meeting with eighth-seeded Detroit.

“The team is playing hard and we’re just trying to get more wins,” Richardson said. “We got Miami and Chicago coming up so we’re trying to affect their hopes and all that different stuff.”