Bargnani’s only played against the Raptors in Toronto twice in his career — once in each of his two years with the Knicks, both in double-digit losses. He’s played 15, 14, 14, and 10 minutes in four games since Tony Brown became interim head coach. That’s about in line with his season averages, though Lionel Hollins had cut Bargnani’s minutes by about 50% in the seven games prior to the coaching change, giving them instead to Willie Reed and Thomas Robinson.
Brown had vowed to give Karasev, who’d landed in Hollins’s doghouse, a shot in the rotation following Hollins’s oust, and he’s mostly kept that word. Karasev has played in every game of Brown’s tenure, albeit never more than nine minutes, and he’s yet to have a positive plus-minus (-7, -3, -13, -1) in any of the four games.
