NEW YORK—DeMar DeRozan is working his way up every significant Toronto Raptors’ career record list in this his best season, and it continues to both fascinate and make him proud.

He became the franchise’s all-time leader in wins, became the fourth player to appear in more than 500 games with Toronto, as well as becoming the first to make 500 starts.

And as of Sunday night, he’s the team’s second-most prolific scorer.

With 27 points in a 93-89 victory over the New York Knicks, DeRozan surpassed Vince Carter (9,420) to move into second all-time behind Chris Bosh (10,275).

“There’s a lot of stuff I still can’t believe when it comes to records . . . I just try to do everything I can to build on where I came from as a rookie,” DeRozan said Sunday morning. “Honestly, when you look at it and see stats come around like that, it’s obviously amazing to see.”

Passing Carter was special for DeRozan, who grew up a fan of the then-iconic Raptor and who has assumed the mantle of ‘face of the franchise.’

“I grew up watching Vince, imitating a lot of things I saw him do as a kid, and . . . I definitely learned from him,” DeRozan said. “You’ve always got to learn from somebody, and he was one of the first dudes I learned from.”

Sunday’s milestone aside, the game was an opportunity for the Raptors to measure their play against their own standards, since the Knicks are playing out the string of another non-playoff season.

“Now we’ve really got to understand that the game of basketball is mental now, we’ve got to really lock in mentally . . . because once (the playoffs) start it’s all about who can out-smart the game,” DeRozan said. “Nothing is secret any more, everybody knows what everybody can do, what plays they like to run, everything.”

The Raptors didn’t do anything surprising or out of the norm for them in a recording a franchise-best 23rd road win this season.

DeRozan and Kyle Lowry led offensively, DeMarre Carroll looked comfortable in another 15-minute appearance and they stifled an awful Knicks team with solid defence.

“He’s definitely going to be a key piece. He’s getting his wind back, getting his legs under him, just getting in the rhythm of things, getting a feel defensively,” DeRozan said of Carroll. “It’s a great opportunity these next two games to really maximize that.”

A DeRozan three-point play with about 65 seconds left broke a tie. The Knicks somehow forgot to guard Jonas Valanciunas on an inbounds play under the basket with less than a second left on the shot clock, and his layup put Toronto up three with less than 45 seconds to go.

“It’s good work for us to have a close game like that, it’s much better than us getting spanked or a blowout the other way,” Casey said. “That team out there was scrapping … they were into us defensively like it’s going to be and we have execute in those situations. You don’t get that kind of quality practice time at full speed.”

It will be at least late Tuesday night before the Raptors know who’ll they face in the first round of the playoffs, although the heavy money is now on the Indiana Pacers.

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Indiana hammered Brooklyn Sunday night to move into a tie with the Detroit Pistons for seventh in the East. The Pacers, who hold the tiebreaker with Detroit, need to beat New York or Milwaukee or have the Pistons lose to either Miami or Chicago to finish seventh.

Toronto could still finish first in the East by winning its last two games while Cleveland loses its last two.

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