Facing a virtual must-win situation tonight against the New York Knicks - the first in a series of increasingly more important "must-win" outings they hope to have - the Raptors will have Chris Bosh back in his usual spot and Andrea Bargnani and Shawn Marion in theirs with the days of bastardized lineups gone, at least until the next injury.

The game against the Knicks, one of six teams between the Raptors and their desired location at No.8 in the Eastern Conference, will be the first time Bosh and Marion will share a court as teammates.

"They had a couple of nice plays (yesterday) in practice working together," Raptors coach Jay Triano said.

One of Toronto's biggest reasons for obtaining Marion for Jermaine O'Neal in a four-player deal was to create a more comfortable front line. Bosh and O'Neal never really meshed and Bargnani bounced between all three positions all season. But with the arrival of Marion to play small forward, that problem seems solved.

"I like a lot about Shawn," said Bosh. "He's a good defender, he's a good rebounder. I think we can really utilize him on offence through mismatches, just moving him around looking for lobs in transition."

Those lobs will be much easier to come by now that Bosh is back after missing five games with a sprained right knee. He generates so much of Toronto's offence and commands such respect from defenders when he has the ball that more space has to open up for Marion.

"Not only is (Bosh) 20 (points) and 10 (rebounds) as far as his stats, but the big thing is teams have to focus their defence around him still," said Triano. "That just leaves things open for other guys.

"He's the vocal guy in the locker room, and it's a lot easier to listen to a guy when he's out there in the trenches with you than when he's out there in a suit. Even though Chris did a good job lending his support while he was injured, when you're in the trenches, they're going to listen to you a lot more."

What they'll hear from Bosh, if they haven't already figured it out for themselves, is that while every game is important, some are more important than others.

And an outing with the Knicks falls into the latter category.

New York, which shook up its roster with a couple of trades yesterday, obtaining Larry Hughes and Chris Wilcox, has a record of 22-31 and is 11th in the East.

'The Raptors, who will face New York four times between now and the first weekend of April, are 21-34 and 14th in the East.

"Not only is any game we play a must-win right now, there is more emphasis on it because these are division opponents, they are ahead of us in the standings and we can catch up a whole game on them," said Bosh.

Under new coach Mike D'Antoni, the Knicks play a rather unorthodox style of shoot-first-shoot-often-shoot-always.

And now with Hughes and Wilcox, they have even more weapons.

"It's hard to prepare for," said Bosh.

"Our main thing right now is we have to get back on defence."