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Toronto Raptors guard Lou Williams (23) scores two points against New York Knicks in the fourth quarter at Air Canada Centre. Raptors won 106 - 89.Peter Llewellyn

Some teams can afford to take it easy in the weeks leading up to the NBA playoffs. Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey can't emphasize enough that his team is not one of them.

Coming off a dominant 106-89 win on Sunday over the New York Knicks – and sitting in third place in the Eastern Conference at 42-28 with a dozen games left on their schedule – it may seem like a comfortable state of affairs for the Raptors.

But Casey isn't anywhere near comfortable. With the postseason less than a month away, the Raptors know they can't just go through the motions down the stretch. They are still desperately seeking a consistent output of that defensive intensity that drove them in last year's fiery playoff appearance. Sunday's win was a start.

"In Dallas and Seattle, [I coached] veteran teams and right before the playoffs, they often kind of took two weeks off," said Casey before Sunday's game. "A young team still trying to find its rhythm and defensive focus, we can't do that."

Toronto got its 11th win in the Atlantic Conference and remains a game up on the Chicago Bulls in the East. The Raptors had just come off a troubling defensive collapse in Chicago on Friday, when they let the Bulls shoot 53 per cent – the fifth time this month they allowed an opponent to better than 50-per-cent shooting. Entering Sunday's game, the Raptors ranked last in defensive rating among all NBA teams in the month of March, allowing 110.5 points per 100 possessions.

Sunday's test wasn't the toughest for Toronto. The Knicks, visiting without the services of Carmelo Anthony, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jose Calderon, sit with a 14-56 record, the worst in the NBA. Still, it was the third win in Toronto's past four outings, and a decent step.

The Raptors had six different players score in double digits on Sunday, led by 23 from DeMar DeRozan and a season-high 18 from Tyler Hansbrough. The others were Jonas Valanciunas (17 along with 10 rebounds), Lou Williams (13), Greivis Vasquez (12) and Terrence Ross (11).

The Raps were playing again without all-star Kyle Lowry, who was missing a second successive game with a back contusion suffered Wednesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Toronto had a 27-23 lead after the first quarter, then used a 20-8 run in the second quarter to pad it, largely on the backs of reserves such as Hansbrough and James Johnson, who provided key defensive stops and physical baskets in the paint.

The Raptors led 56-41 at the half but allowed the Knicks back into the game by going nearly three minutes without a field goal and getting outscored 25-18 in the third quarter, making it an eight-point game entering the fourth. The Raps overcame the lapse against the depleted Knicks, and scored 12 straight points in the last 10 minutes to run away with it.

"A lot of guys have the playoffs in the backs of our minds," Hansbrough said. "We know what we want to get right before the playoffs, so we can have some momentum going in."

Lance Thomas lead the way for New York with 24, while former Raptors big man Andrea Bargnani put up 16, before boos from the Air Canada Centre crowd. Toronto held the Knicks to 41.7-per-cent shooting.

"The focus and intensity on the defensive end was good, and important, more so than the win," Casey said. "I thought our defensive rotations were crisp. We played with force on the defensive end, and that's going to carry over no matter who you play."

The Raptors travel to the Palace of Auburn Hills to take on the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday night before returning home for another matchup with the Bulls on Wednesday. There are just a dozen games left on Toronto's regular-season schedule.

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