Whether it’d be the playoffs or just the play-in, the New York Knicks are out. Tuesday’s 117-111 loss against Atlanta all but sealed the deal for New York this season. It doesn’t help that Julius Randle is sidelined with quad soreness, and it looks like it could turn into a shutdown for the remainder of the year.
With the Sweet Sixteen kicking off on Thursday night, Knicks fans have turned their attention to hoping the lottery balls fall kindly, awarding New York the chance to draft the Purdue star Jaden Ivey.
The Knicks’ departure from contention brings a question that fans have had to answer far too often over the last decade: who should New York root for in the playoffs?
With no juggernaut like LeBron’s Heat or Durant’s Warriors, it looks wide open as we approach the start of the postseason.
3 teams New York Knicks fans should root for in the 2021-22 playoffs
3. Toronto Raptors
First and foremost, the Raptors are just cool. They’re somehow the biggest team in the NBA and Pascal Siakam is the tallest player in their starting lineup at six-foot-eight.
Six out of eight players from their 2019 championship rotation are gone: Kawhi Leonard, Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, Danny Green, Serge Ibaka, and Norm Powell. Yet despite turning over their roster, Toronto’s accomplished a successful rebuild in a little over a year.
Fred Van Fleet is a joy to watch, and someone who the Knicks wish they made a bigger push for a couple of offseasons ago. Nick Nurse might be the best coach in the league, and the Raptors are the underdogs that no one in the East wants to play.
But as compelling as Toronto is, what’s most important for New York fans is that the Raptors appear to be the most likely opponent for the Nets in the play-in tournament.
Toronto sits as the seventh seed in the conference to Brooklyn’s eighth seed, meaning that the Raptors would host the Nets in a game that Kyrie Irving wouldn’t be eligible to play in. It wouldn’t be a winner takes all game, as the loser would go on to play the winner of the No. 9 vs No. 10 seed game.
Toronto can put Brooklyn on the brink of elimination before the playoffs even begin. That’d be a sight for sore eyes for Knicks fans. Also, RJ Barrett is Canadian. Oh, Canada!