The Knicks beat the Raptors 122-120 at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, Oct. 15, in their final preseason game. Yahoo Sports reported that it was their first win of the preseason and left them 1-4. The result came two days after Toronto won 148-98 in the first meeting.

Yahoo's recap framed the night around Karl-Anthony Towns, saying he missed a triple-double "by one dime." Our box score backs that up: Towns had 13 points, 15 rebounds and 9 assists in 29 minutes. Jalen Brunson led New York with 20 points and seven assists. Andre Drummond had 14 points and eight rebounds in 15 minutes, and Mikal Bridges also scored 14. Landry Shamet scored 13 and was a team-best +14 in the game, tied with Miles McBride.

New York won the interior and the glass. It outscored Toronto 56-42 in the paint and had 15 offensive rebounds to the Raptors' nine. It also had 35 assists to Toronto's 27. The Raptors won the fast-break count 18-8 and blocked 10 shots to New York's three. The game was close throughout. The Knicks led for 79 percent of it, with a largest lead of 10, and Toronto took the fourth quarter 41-35 but fell two points short.

Sportsnet's Michael Grange called it an "optimistic defeat" and focused on Scottie Barnes. Barnes scored 23 on 9-of-15 shooting, including 4 of 5 from three, and added four blocks, four assists and three rebounds in 28 minutes. That is a sharper outside night than his 2026 regular-season line of 0.9 made threes on 2.8 attempts per game. RJ Barrett scored 21 with eight rebounds, and Immanuel Quickley had 18 points and seven assists. Jakob Poeltl scored seven and was -9.

Posting and Toasting's Russell Richardson noted that Toronto played its starters, listing Quickley, Barrett, Barnes, Kawhi Leonard and Poeltl. He wrote that the Knicks did the same, "mostly," with Mohamed Diawara starting in place of a player whose name is cut off in the feed. That contrasts with Tuesday, when Richardson said Toronto "clobbered the reserves." Diawara, who started seven of 69 games last season, scored six points on 2-of-10 shooting in 20 minutes. Kawhi Leonard played 23 minutes and scored six on 2-of-5 shooting, well under his 2026 regular-season average of 32.1 minutes. The sources we have don't say why his minutes were limited. The Canadian Press and ESPN items we have are headline-only, so we have no further detail from them.

One note on records: our tables still list New York at 0-4 and Toronto at 2-1. Yahoo has the Knicks at 1-4 after this win, and that is the figure to use. Toronto plays at Detroit today, Oct. 16. New York's next game is Tuesday, Oct. 20, at home against Philadelphia.