Lowry-led Raptors still playing for playoff seeding

NEW YORK -- The Toronto Raptors survived decently while Kyle Lowry missed over a month with a wrist injury.

Now Lowry is back and the Raptors are trying to continue their strong finish with the playoffs looming in the near future.

Lowry and the Raptors play their penultimate game of the regular season Sunday afternoon when they visit the New York Knicks and attempt to clinch the third seed in the Eastern Conference.

The Raptors (49-31) are one game ahead of the Washington Wizards, who lost to the Miami Heat Saturday. Toronto owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with Washington.

"Come next weekend, it's a whole different dynamic of basketball," Toronto star DeMar DeRozan said. "That's the best part of the year. That's what you work for to play into April, going into May and so on."

Toronto was 14-7 without Lowry. Lowry did not play the first two games after the All-Star break and the Raptors announced he was getting right wrist surgery on Feb. 26 before their last visit to New York.

How the Raptors performed without Lowry can be broken up into two segments.

From Feb. 23 to March 16, the Raptors were 6-5. During the first segment, they averaged 99.9 points to go along with a 104.9 offensive rating.

In the final 10 games without Lowry, Toronto was 8-2 and averaged 106 points while posting a 110.1 offensive rating.

Lowry returned Wednesday and scored 27 points in 42 minutes in a 105-102 win at Detroit. On Friday in a 96-94 home win over the Miami Heat, he scored 12 points in 36 minutes.

"He still orchestrated everything," DeMar DeRozan said. "Defensively just having his mind and body out there does a lot. A lot of times Kyle don't have to get to get it going, scoring-wise to will us to a victory. That's the great thing about him. Teams still gotta respect him, while he's out there. The whole dynamic is still the same if he's making shots. It's great just to have him out there."

While Lowry was out, DeRozan recorded eight games with 30 points and averaged 27.1 points. On Friday, he totaled 38 for his 31st 30-point game of the season, breaking the team record set by Vince Carter in 2000-01.

His best stretch during Lowry's absence occurred in the first three games Feb. 24-27 when DeRozan scored 113 points, tying his most over a three-game span. It culminated in Toronto's last trip to New York when DeRozan scored 37, including the final 12 Raptors points and hit the game-winning shot with just under two seconds remaining in a 92-91.

New York (30-50) is 0-3 against Toronto and will finish with at least 50 losses for the third straight season. The Knicks have totaled at least 50 losses 17 times in team history and eight of those instances have occurred since 2000.

New York is 14-37 since Dec. 22 and since its last loss to Toronto, the Knicks are 6-14. The latest setback was a 101-88 in Memphis on Friday and many fans were pleased since they want the Knicks to tank to enhance their NBA draft lottery positioning.

The Knicks were up two after the third quarter but were outscored 31-16 in the fourth quarter.

"In this game, when you're shooting 3s, it can go from a close game to all of a sudden you're down 12 or 15 points," Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek said.

Carmelo Anthony (rest) and Kristaps Porzingis (back injury) did not play. Without their two best players, the Knicks were led by Courtney Lee's 16 points in a starting lineup that included Maurice Ndour, Justin Holiday, Wily Hernangomez and Ron Baker.

Anthony will likely play the next two games and if he approves an offseason trade, it could be his final games with the Knicks. Porzingis is hoping to play one of the last two games, especially since he has missed 14 games already and the Knicks are 4-10 when he sits.

"I didn't finish the season last year so I want to at least finish these last couple of games. It's not smart to force it now, you have to be smart about it. But I would like to play," Porzingis told reporters.

Toronto has won the last six meetings since Nov. 10, 2015 and it is the Raptors' longest winning streak in the series. Besides the 37 points in the last meeting, DeRozan totaled a combined 56 points in Toronto's two home wins Nov. 12 and Jan. 15.

Toronto also is going for its second season sweep of the Knicks. The Raptors also achieved in the 2009-10 season when DeRozan was a rookie.