Knicks Edge Raptors at the Garden, Rockets Rout Thunder in Preseason Finales

NEW YORK Thursday, October 15, 2026

Two games, two very different kinds of preseason finale. At Madison Square Garden, the defending champion Knicks finally played something close to a real dress rehearsal — starters on starter minutes, a game that stayed honest into the final possessions, and a 122-120 win over a Toronto team that had embarrassed their reserves two nights earlier. In Houston, there was no such suspense: the Rockets opened a 33-15 first quarter, absorbed one Oklahoma City push, and then ran the Thunder out of the building in the fourth quarter of a 116-89 rout. Neither result will appear in any standings that matter next week. Both told you something true about the teams that earned them, five days before the games start counting.

At the Garden: the champions finally look like themselves

Start with the context, because Tuesday is the reason Thursday looked the way it did. In the first half of this home-and-home, Toronto beat New York 148-98 on its own floor with the Knicks sitting all of their starters. On Thursday, at a sold-out Garden, coach Mike Brown reversed the arrangement: Brunson, Towns, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby all played between 29 and 31 minutes, Mohamed Diawara started in place of Josh Hart — who sat out with ankle soreness — and the Knicks played the kind of connected basketball Brown has been asking for all month. New York finished with 35 assists on 43 made field goals, shot 47.8 percent from the field and made 15 three-pointers.

Brunson, the reigning Finals MVP, was the steady hand: 20 points and seven assists in just under 29 minutes, 7-for-15 from the field and 5-for-6 at the line. But the more revealing line belonged to Towns. Working from the high post, he piled up seven assists in the first half alone and finished with 13 points, a game-high 15 rebounds and nine assists — one helper short of a preseason triple-double, and a clear picture of how Brown wants this offense to run when the games matter: through two playmaking bigs. Backup center Andre Drummond made the same point in miniature, with 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting, eight rebounds and four assists in just over 15 minutes. Bridges added 14 and Landry Shamet 13 off the bench.

Toronto, to its credit, refused to treat this as a coronation rehearsal. Scottie Barnes led all scorers with 23 points, former Knick RJ Barrett added 21 points and eight rebounds against his old team, and Immanuel Quickley — another former Knick — finished with 18 points and seven assists. All five Raptors starters reached double figures, Toronto shot 50.6 percent, and a 41-point fourth quarter turned an 87-79 game after three into a genuine finish. The one note Toronto will take home with concern is Kawhi Leonard's night: six points on 2-for-5 shooting in 22 minutes, and an exit with 4:42 left in the third quarter after which he did not return. Reports from the game gave no reason for the early exit, so there is nothing responsible to read into it yet — but it is the first thing the Raptors will be asked about when they land in Detroit for Friday's finale against the Pistons.

For New York, the takeaway is simpler. The rotation that will raise the banner on Tuesday looked coherent: the ball moved, the centers created, the bench produced, and the closing group held off a real push instead of a ceremonial one. The Knicks open the regular season at home on October 20 against a rebuilt Philadelphia 76ers team — LeBron James and Jaylen Brown making their Sixers debuts — in the league's marquee opening-night game. Thursday was the first night this month that New York looked ready for it. More from the preseason injury and rotation picture is on the Previously sports front, including our earlier report on the Lakers' finale injury update.

In Houston: a rout, and a rotation question answered loudly

If the Garden game was about rhythm, the Toyota Center game was about depth — and about one veteran who spent 16 minutes arguing that Houston's rotation should be bigger than planned. The Rockets were reported this week to have nine clear rotation players: Kevin Durant, Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Fred VanVleet, Jabari Smith Jr., Tari Eason, Reed Sheppard, Steven Adams and Marcus Smart. Bogdan Bogdanovic, the 34-year-old sharpshooter who arrived in the offseason, played like a man filing an objection. In 16 minutes off the bench he scored a team-high 15 points, hit 5 of his 8 three-point attempts and added six rebounds, torching Oklahoma City's experimental double-big lineups from the perimeter.

He was hardly alone. Sengun was efficient and complete — 14 points on 7-for-11 shooting, seven rebounds, five assists and two blocks in 24 minutes. Thompson added 12 points, five rebounds and four assists, Eason scored 12, Sheppard had 11 points, five rebounds and three assists, and Durant took a light night: 11 points in 16 minutes, all of it early, none of it forced. Six Rockets reached double figures, Houston recorded 34 assists on 47 baskets, and after Oklahoma City trimmed an 18-point first-quarter hole to 79-69 through three quarters, the Rockets won the fourth 37-20 and pushed the lead to 29.

Oklahoma City's side of the box score is the preseason in one line: two players in double figures, and a lot of learning. Jalen Williams led the Thunder with 18 points and seven rebounds, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 17 points and three assists in 26 minutes — the deepest the Thunder's stars played all preseason — but the team shot 41 percent, went a brutal 5-for-36 from three-point range and managed 19 assists on 36 baskets. This was a finale the Thunder treated as evaluation once the fourth quarter arrived, and the bench unit was outscored accordingly. There is no reason for Oklahoma City to carry any of it into Tuesday, when the Thunder open at San Antonio in a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals — the same Spurs side the Knicks beat for the title. Houston, meanwhile, gets an extra day: the Rockets open at home on Wednesday, October 21, against Dallas, with a genuine question for coach Ime Udoka about whether his rotation is nine deep or ten. Bogdanovic just spent a night making the case for ten. Our earlier Thunder coverage, including the Otega Oweh injury report, is also on Previously.

What comes next: twelve finales, then it counts

Thursday's two games were the appetizer. The preseason ends in one sweep on Friday, October 16, with twelve games: Miami at Orlando, Toronto at Detroit, Boston at Philadelphia and Milwaukee at Indiana in the early window; Charlotte at Memphis, Atlanta at Dallas, Minnesota at Chicago, Sacramento at San Antonio and Washington at New Orleans an hour later; then Utah at Phoenix and Portland at Golden State out west, and Denver at the Lakers in Los Angeles to close the night on ESPN. For most of those teams it is the same exercise the Knicks and Rockets just completed — starters on real minutes, one last look at the end of the bench, and nobody getting hurt. That last part is the whole ballgame; the league has already watched enough finales turn into injury reports this month.

Then, on Tuesday, the exhibition season gives way to the real one. Opening night, October 20, brings Boston at Detroit, Philadelphia at New York under the Knicks' new banner, and Oklahoma City at San Antonio. Eleven more teams open the following night. Everything Thursday night was rehearsal — but it was the good kind, the kind that actually resembles the show. The Knicks moved the ball like champions in their own building. The Rockets showed a bench that can break a game open. Toronto showed it will not be a pushover in the Atlantic, and Oklahoma City showed nothing at all, which is exactly what a team with its ambitions usually shows in mid-October. The next wrap-up in this space will be the first one that counts.