Griffin Wong previews tonight’s Emirates NBA Cup quarterfinal between the New York Knicks and the Toronto Raptors with his favorite player prop bets.
In the Emirates NBA Cup, 22 teams have been eliminated, and only eight teams remain in contention for the second-loftiest trophy in all of professional basketball. The knockout stage of the NBA Cup will begin tonight with a pair of Eastern Conference quarterfinals at the higher seeds’ home courts before the semifinals and championship match take place in Las Vegas.
The Toronto Raptors, who were the first team to clinch their NBA Cup group, are the East’s No. 2 seed and will host the No. 3 seed New York Knicks tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET. They’re also two of the top four teams in the conference overall; New York is 16-7 and trails the Detroit Pistons by 2.5 games, while Toronto is 15-10.
The Knicks are 4.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-192 on the Moneyline), with the point total set at 227.5. The Raptors are +160 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll lay out my three favorite prop bets for tonight’s contest.
Karl-Anthony Towns O22.5 Points (-106)
Towns checked out from New York’s 146-112 win over the Utah Jazz on December 5 several minutes before the Knicks’ other starters and subsequently missed the team’s win over the Orlando Magic two nights later while dealing with soreness in his calf. While New York could afford to be cautious with him given the fickle nature of calf injuries, the Knicks won’t play again until at least Saturday, so they shouldn’t be overly concerned about putting stress on his leg. If he plays, he’s a decent bet to score 23 or more points: after a slow start, he’s done so in four of his last eight games.
While Toronto has been good defensively, it has still been exploitable by opposing big men. The Raptors have held opponents to the seventh-fewest made threes per game on the third-lowest percentage but have allowed the seventh-most makes at the rim on the 11th-highest percentage. That should work in Towns’ favor: while he’s perhaps best defined as the best-shooting big man ever, nearly half of his shots this season have come at the rim, and after a slow start to the season, he’s hit his restricted-area tries at a 69.5% clip (roughly his career average) in his last nine games. Toronto has also conceded the fifth-most wide-open threes across its last eight games, and Towns has made more than 40% of his uncontested treys in each of his last eight seasons before 2025-26.
Immanuel Quickley 3+ Three-Pointers Made (-116)
Speaking of wide-open threes, New York has given up the ninth-most uncontested three-point attempts per game, and as of late, it has gotten extremely fortunate that opponents haven’t converted (the fourth-lowest percentage in the last 10 games). The Knicks know first-hand that they can’t expect to get that lucky against Quickley, their late first-round pick in 2020. This season, the 26-year-old sharpshooter — who’s questionable with an illness for tonight’s contest — has drained three or more of his triples in 13 of his 25 games and in four of the eight games since Barrett went down. He’s generated by far the most wide-open three-point attempts on the Raptors (the sixth-most in the league) and while he’s only made them at a 36.4% clip, I’d expect his accuracy to climb back towards the 42.8% he posted in 2024-25.
OG Anunoby 2+ Steals (-126)
If there was ever a question about who the third-best player in New York was, it should have been answered by now. Anunoby has been among the league’s most impactful defenders this season; with him on the court, the Knicks have the equivalent of the league’s second-best defense, as compared to the equivalent of the league’s seventh-worst with him on the bench. He’s also averaging a career-high steal rate, nabbing multiple steals in six of the nine games in which he’s played at least 30 minutes. In New York’s narrow win over the Magic, Anunoby was a plus-20 with three steals in just under 28 minutes of game time.
Anunoby’s ball-hawking prowess should play right into the Raptors’ weaknesses. For all of RJ Barrett’s limitations (especially as a defender) he’s at least a capable scorer and lead ball-handler. Without him, Toronto’s turnover percentage jumps by 1.4 percentage points, and in the eight games since he went down with a knee injury, it has allowed the eighth-most steals per game. In part, it’s a byproduct of the Raptors’ style: without the isolation-happy Barrett, Toronto has leaned further into ball movement, making the ninth-most passes per game, and entrusting a young and inexperienced roster with quick passes often leads to giveaways.
