Eleven games for him so far in this postseason. Five dazzling performances of 40 points or more. In the history of the NBA here are the guys who have done more than that in a single year: Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Jerry West, Allen Iverson. That is the historic company Brunson now keeps.

That is the kind of 11 that No.11 has rolled so far.

“[Brunson] is an incredible player,” his coach Tom Thibodeau said after Game 5, Thibodeau’s Knicks having gotten up again after getting knocked down the way they were in Game 4 in Indy.

The Knicks were absolutely as much of a team as they’ve ever been on Tuesday night. But then, they are as much of a team as the Knicks have had since 2000, the last time any Knicks team made it as far as the Eastern Conference finals. Only this feels bigger than that, and better, and louder and more important to Knicks fans because of everything that has happened since then, so much of it bad.

You saw how many guys stepped up in Game 5, the ‘Nova Knicks and Isaiah Hartenstein and Deuce McBride and a guy Thibs had forgotten named Alec Burks because everybody had forgotten Burks. Once again, though, it was all sidebar as we all saw what Brunson is like when he has his legs underneath him, when Atlas doesn’t shrug, Brunson putting 44 more points into the books and making another memory for himself and the Garden and once again making you ask this question about No. 11:

How could the Mavericks been so wrong about this guy?

Brunson clearly was not himself in the two games the Knicks lost to the Pacers in Indianapolis when the Pacers squared the series. He was a step slow, at least, had no lift, missed shots he had been making since the start of the series against the 76ers. By then Brunson had set the bar so high for himself, in this playoff series in the NBA when the only more important player has been Nikola Jokic, the MVP of the league again, that when he scored 26 and 29 in those games it was as if he’d barely shown up.

Thibodeau: “I just love how there’s never any excuse-making for him.”

And when it was over on Tuesday night, the opposing coach, Rick Carlisle, whose defense once again watched Brunson go wherever he wanted to go on offense whenever he wanted to, said this:

“Their level of fight was greater than our own.”

It mattered, of course, and mightily. But what mattered more and mattered the most was this: Thibodeau had Brunson and Carlisle did not, on a night at the Garden when Brunson scored 32 of his 44 in the paint. A guard who is listed at 6-2 and doesn’t really look 6-2 once again played like a giant of his sport and continued to make April and May of 2024 a basketball time that will be remembered whether the Pacers come all the way back, or whether the Knicks got knocked off in the round after this. And maybe the very best part of it all is that Brunson is still just 27 years old. There is no reason to think he might only just be getting started.

May 15, 2024: Brun' win away!

Brunson runs the show and owns this Garden the way Clyde Frazier owned his. But Clyde, the best all-around Knick of them all, had all those Hall of Famers with him, Willis Reed and Dave DeBusschere and Bill Bradley and, later, Earl (The Pearl) Monroe. As admirable as these Knicks are, all that fight in them that Carlisle talked about, they right now are starting one player who started the first game of their regular season, and that is Brunson.

Julius Randle is hurt and Mitchell Robinson is hurt and RJ Barrett and Quentin Grimes are long gone. OG Anunoby, such a huge difference-maker for them after the Knicks got him in a trade with Toronto, is hurt again. But the way the Knicks looked without him on Tuesday night in Game 5, there are plenty Knick fans I know who are perfectly willing to take their chances with the Celtics, if it comes to that, if Anunoby gets healthy and looks the way he did, at both ends of the court, the way he did when the Knicks first got him.

But as much as Thibodeau has gotten from the other ‘Nova Knicks especially — Josh Hart, Donte DiVincenzo — this is all about Brunson, the son or Rick Brunson, an old Knick, the kid who grew up, as Jeff Van Gundy told me one time, “dribbling the ball up and down the hallway at the Garden.” He has gone from that to this, No. 11 rolling this kind of 11 and looking like a Knick who has taken his place with the best they’ve ever had. You hear a lot about a puncher’s chance in sports. Brunson is that for these Knicks.

He took two minutes off in Game 5, the Pacers started to come back, Brunson came back and all of a sudden the Knicks went off on a 9-0 rip, and were going to win again. Now he gets these two days off to catch his breath. We all do.

All that.

Now we at least begin to find out on this Sunday afternoon in Indy, another big Knicks-Pacers Sunday afternoon out of the past, if this is finally a Knicks team good enough to do something it actually has not done since the spring of 2000:

Make it past the second round.

We find out if the Knicks can finally make it past the conference semis, can validate its No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, can make it to the NBA’s Final Four; can give itself a chance to make it back to the Finals for the first time since 1999. You want to know why what the Knicks have been doing lately feels as big and loud as it does? Because of how much Knicks fans want this. Because they feel as if they’ve got a real chance now, after so many years since Patrick Ewing when they didn’t.

Everybody knows about the injuries, first to Julius Randle long before the playoffs began, then to OG Anunoby (the elbow injury, not the hamstring from the other night), then to Bojan Bogdanovic, now to Brunson’s foot. And Mitchell Robinson, again.  Everybody has seen how they’ve played through it all and nearly stole Game 3 on Friday night in Indy even with Brunson clearly not himself, all the way until Andrew Nembhard made a 3-pointer near the end from the land of Caitlin Clark.

This was a night when the Pacers fought to the end the way the Knicks have been fighting to the end, in what has felt like a last-two-minutes April and May for them. Now the Knicks have been hit again, just as it seemed as if they were about to go ahead three games to none, and gotten knocked down. We see on Sunday how they get back up. And if they are different from all the other teams since Jeff Van Gundy was still coaching and they made their last conference final in 2000.

The Knicks couldn’t get past the Heat in the second round last season when Randle was the one with a bad leg and they ended up losing in six; when Brunson couldn’t carry them, as valiantly as he played in the end, to Game 7. They couldn’t get out of the second round in May of ’13, couldn’t get to Game 7 against the Pacers that time because in the most important moment of Game 6 Roy Hibbert was waiting for Carmelo Anthony at the rim after Carmelo came down the right baseline thinking he was going to throw one down. And down went the Knicks again. We will find out, probably early in Game 4, is if they have gotten up limping, the way Brunson limped to the finish on Friday night, even if he did make the 3-pointer that tied the game at 106.

“We’ve got to do better,” Thibodeau said when it was over. “Every game we play, you look at it the same way. Whether you win or lose, you look at the things we have to fix. And we have to fix them quick.”

No one is sure how Brunson is going to recover from whatever is wrong with his right foot. Anunoby is not expected to play Game 4 and, at this point, you wonder when the Knicks are going to see him again. Still they really do keep coming. Mike Breen joked on Friday night that he had “breaking news” when Hart finally went to the bench for a breather, in the midst of a game when he had 18 more rebounds. So, Hart “only” played 43 minutes instead of his usual 48. Donte DiVincenzo played 44 and had 35 points. Even Brunson was out there for 38 minutes.

It’s what they do now, what’s expected of them, who they are. They absolutely have been the easiest Knicks team to root for since ’99, when they came from that No. 8 seed and knocked off the Heat in the first round and didn’t lose a series until the Spurs got them in the Finals.

They’ve done so many good things and occasionally great things just in the first nine games of the playoffs. But they need to get two more games. When they did make it back to the Eastern Conference finals against the Pacers, even with Ewing on his last legs, you never would have thought that the famous ceiling at the Garden was about to fall on them the way it would. But it did. They finally had a moment in 2012-13 with Mike Woodson as the coach, when they won 54 games and finished in first place in the Atlantic Division. But then came more losing seasons after that, until Leon Rose took over the basketball operation and Thibodeau became the coach and the ‘Nova Knicks came to town.

The Knicks as a group have been going to town lately. But they’re still not out of the second round. Haven’t been for a long time. Maybe this time.

BIG APPLE SPORTS ARE BOOMING, GIANTS NAB A TRUE OFFENSIVE STAR & MAJOR TALKING POINTS …

What if?

What if the Yankees play like this all year?

What if Aaron does come all the way back?

What if the Knicks and Rangers both keep it going?

I’ll tell you what:

It would only make this one of the best times in the history of New York City sports.

This is from my sportswriter big brother, the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan, the best pro basketball writer of them all:

“Every referee, at every level, should be asked one question, pass-fail quiz. The question: ‘Why am I here?’ The answer: ‘To adjudicate the smooth flow of the game, not to prove you know every comma in the rule book. And you must apply common sense. The last minute of play is far different than the first minute of play.”

Reports of the postseason death of the Denver Nuggets … well, you know the rest.

Malik Nabers is four months away from the first time he officially lines up for the Giants, and he’s already the best offensive player they have.

He has the chance to be the player they hoped Odell Beckham Jr. would be.

And for more than what now feels like about five minutes.

And one less-than-luxury cruise with some of his teammates.

Sorry.

Still too soon?

Man, those contracts the Mets gave Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander look amazingly dumb — and dumber — in retrospect, right?

This past week is the first time since last June, when Aaron Judge has really and truly looked like Aaron Judge.

I said this before the season and will say it now, even though Yankee fans are seeing with their own eyes just how good Juan Soto is:

The only chance the Yankees have to be great again is if Judge is great again.

Doesn’t mean 62-home-runs great.

But he’s got to go back to being exactly what he was over the past few days, which means the most dangerous and most compelling at-bat in baseball.

One more time:

Jalen Brunson is the best free agent signing in New York sports since Reggie.

Our Reggie, not theirs.

Until Rick Carlisle started complaining, I didn’t even know we got 79 whistles in a whole game.

I would love to see Rory McIlroy finally win another major at the PGA at Valhalla this coming week.

Or for Jordan Spieth to look like Jordan Spieth again.

Or Scottie Scheffler to keep playing Tiger golf, if Scheffler isn’t still on baby watch in Texas.

But you know who I’d really love to see win the 2024 PGA?

Cameron Young, the kid from Sleepy Hollow.

Speaking of Tiger, by the way?

We may get a sense at Valhalla if he’s anything more than a ceremonial legend golfer now.

I know I’m late getting to the party, so don’t you judge me, but I am loving me some “Hacks” right now.

We’re all charter members of the Jalen Brunson Fan Club these days, but by Thursday morning I was starting to think he’d caught his foot in a bear trap.

Every time what my pal Frankie Isola call the Minutes Police come after Tom Thibodeau, I find myself asking this question:

How is load management working out for Kawhi Leonard?

Here’s one more question for the Minutes Police:

Who’s Thibs supposed to be giving extra minutes to — John Starks?

If LeBron and Kevin Durant ever end up on the same team, just think how fast the number of fired coaches would decrease.

Winning the Presidents’ Trophy doesn’t seem to be holding the Rangers back these days, does it?

The only thing we all ever wanted was for Jimmy Dolan to be happy.

Where did the Suns find Mat Ishbia — Owners R Us?

Robert F. Kennedy says a worm ate part of his brain, but also says that won’t prevent him from being president.

President of what?

Next Spike and Reggie Miller will be doing a buddy movie together.

If Stormy Daniels spends more time in town, one of the baseball teams is going to ask her to throw out the first pitch.

Somehow, though, they just keep coming. And their story got a little bigger Wednesday night, as Brunson continues to have a postseason for the ages, and one of the best any New York athlete has ever had.

It’s why you started to get the idea Wednesday night that Brunson was playing on a broken leg instead of a sore foot as he rose up and his teammates rose up with him and the Garden rose up with all of them when the Knicks were taking the game back in the second half, and especially in a third quarter that was one of the great playoff moments any Knicks team has ever had.

“We did what we had to do,” Brunson said on television when it was over, even though what he did to the Pacers in Game 2 felt more like another movie moment for him and his teammates.

Brunson only played 32 minutes on this night after going to the locker room in the first quarter and then staying there the rest of the half. He still ended up with 29, would have had more if he didn’t miss a couple of free throws at the very end, would have gone for 40 again if he’d played the whole game. Josh Hart did play the whole game, of course, all 48 minutes, 19 points for him and 15 rebounds, nobody on the Pacers close to a rebound total like that.

Donte DiVincenzo? He went for 28 on Wednesday night, with six 3’s. ‘Nova Knicks against the world. With more than a little help from Isaiah Hartenstein, who started playing his pro ball in Germany and knocked around with the Rockets and Nuggets and Clippers and Cavs before becoming part of this wild ride the Knicks are giving themselves and Basketball New York right now. All Hartenstein did in Game 2 was score 14 points, grab 12 rebounds and end up two assists short of a triple-double.

Brunson got hurt, came back. OG Anunoby, who was having his best playoff game Wednesday, maybe the game of his pro career considering the circumstances, grabbed the back of his leg in the fourth quarter and did not come back. Still the Knicks kept coming. Keep coming. As they continue to make Next Man Up not just another cliché of sports, but their brand, totally.

How long can this go on as it really does seem the Pacers are going to be on the power play the rest of the way, especially with Anunoby hurt again? We are going to begin to find out on Friday night in Indianapolis, where so many Knick-Pacer basketball dramas have played out in the past. Once again, Brunson’s words, they will all have to find a way.

Starting with the Villanova guy having a New York postseason like this. For the ages, for sure. This 40-point run of his, one that absolutely would have continued if he didn’t sit out as long as he did, has started to feel like Clyde Frazier’s Game 7 on the night in 1970 when Willis Reed was the one to limp out of the locker room (36 points, 19 assists, seven rebounds), just every night. Clyde had that game with a title on the line. But for the Finals that year, No. 10 averaged 17 points and 10 assists. These days it really does feel as if No. 11 has now played eight Game 7’s in a row.

What Clyde did, what Mark Messier did, and Michael Strahan and Justin Tuck and them did to Tom Brady; what Reggie did in the ’77 World Series and what Derek Jeter did in more than one October and the way Phil Simms played in a Super Bowl once — those things happened in much bigger games than these, absolutely. The Knicks aren’t even to the Eastern Conference finals yet. Still: What Brunson is doing right now, in the moment — the moment being all that matters in sports, after all — looks and feels and even sounds just as big.

May 9, 2024: The Jalen Brunson Game!

We will see how the Pacers will respond now to having been smacked around in the first two games, and especially the way they got rolled in the third quarter Wednesday night. We will begin to get a sense in Indy, depending on Anunoby’s health, if this whole thing can continue to be sustainable with a rotation for Tom Thibodeau that you could fit inside a shot glass.

Really, we are going to find out if we still can get New York-against-Boston, one more moment out of the past and out of Knick legend, in the conference finals. We already know that as hard as the road there has become for the Knicks because of the injuries, it has just made the story they’re writing feel bigger, and better.

And everybody needs to appreciate what they are seeing, however long this all lasts, with as tough a Knicks team as the great Red Holzman ever coached, or Coach Riley, or Jeff Van Gundy. There have been better Knick teams than this, obviously. Two won titles and two since, in ’94 and ’99, fought for the title. This team still isn’t anywhere near any of that, at least not yet.

These Knicks are still something to see. Were something to see again on Wednesday night when it looked as if the Pacers might even the series and sure did not. Brunson came back. His buddies Hart and DiVincenzo were waiting for him. ‘Nova Knicks against the world.

Oh, they’ve heard about what it was like around here in the ’90s, when it was the Knicks against Michael Jordan and against Reggie Miller and his Pacers; against Pat Riley’s Heat once Riley skipped town after a Knicks-Pacers series in 1995. They got an earful about Larry Johnson’s 4-point play against the Pacers when the Knicks were on their way back to the NBA Finals in 1999, especially after Tyrese Maxey made a 4-pointer of his own against them in Game 5.

And everybody who follows the NBA, any age, knows about the Sunday afternoon, almost 29 years ago exactly — May 7, 1995 — when Reggie scored eight points in 8.9 seconds at the end of Game 1. That was the day when Reggie looked over at Spike Lee (they’re friends now, in case you’re keeping score at home) and made the choke sign with his hands, and immediately bought prime real estate on the front and back pages of our tabloids.

After Maxey did make his 4-point play and then followed that up by making a 3-pointer from the marquee to send Game 5 into overtime, I called Spike the next morning to see if he might be suffering some Reggie PTSD.

Spike laughed, because he hadn’t attended the game, he’d been up in the Bronx shooting another movie, his fifth, with Denzel Washington.

“They can’t blame this one on me!” Spike said. “I wasn’t in my seat this time, I was just uptown listening on the radio.”

There was a pause and then he quietly said, “Twenty-nine years ago since Reggie did it to us, and it’s still too soon.”

Those were the days. And nights, here and in Indy. It was Reggie against Spike and Reggie against the Knicks and a back page at this paper that actually read this way: “Knicks vs. Hicks.” It was Reggie’s 8 and Larry Johnson’s 4. It was Patrick missing the finger roll that would have tied Game 7 in ’95 and his old teammate, Mark Jackson, saying in the Pacers’ locker room after the game, “Patrick could never make a finger roll to save his life.”

Around here, it was all the stuff of legend, good and bad, and you better believe that legend informs the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Knicks and Pacers that begins on Monday night at the Garden. This is a basketball time in New York, and a high time it is, when it’s all right for those of us who were around in the ’90s — and I was lucky enough to literally have a front-row seat to it all — to say this:

“You really had to be there.”

Miller wasn’t just one of the great shooters in the history of the NBA, he was a dream leading man for his team in all ways. He wasn’t afraid of the Knicks, he wasn’t afraid of the Garden, he certainly wasn’t afraid of the moment.

And it always seemed to be a fair fight. The Knicks got him in ’93, the series in which John Starks famously head-butted the Pacers star. Then came the Eastern Conference finals of ’94, with the Knicks trying to make it back to the NBA finals for the first time since the ’70s. That was the series when Reggie really got into it with Spike, on his way to scoring 25 points in the fourth quarter of Game 5. The next day the front page of the Daily News read this way:

“THANKS A LOT, SPIKE.”

“Can I let you in on a secret?” Reggie told me once when we were walking down Madison Ave. “I loved it all.”

But then at the end of Game 7, with the season for both teams on the line, Ewing produced the put-back dunk that put the Knicks back into the Finals. It was, in so many ways, as big as he ever was in the biggest game he’d ever played in the pros:  24 points, 22 rebounds, seven assists, five blocks.

When it was over, there was one of the last pictures of his basketball life, Ewing standing on the scorer’s table with his arms in the air in triumph.

Yeah, those were the days. And nights. And you better believe that the Indiana Pacers were right in the middle of it. Those Knicks fought more fights with Reggie than they did with Michael Jordan.

The two teams played again in the Eastern Conference semis in ’98. The Pacers got the Knicks in that one, when one of the biggest moments was a 3-pointer from Reggie — of course — at the end of Game 4 in the Garden, forcing an overtime that the Pacers won, on their way to winning the series in five.

The next year after the 8th-seeded Knicks had knocked off the No. 1 Heat in the first round, it was the Pacers for them again. This time Reggie did not make the shots that saved his team, or laid out the Knicks. In Game 6, in fact, he played one of the worst big games of his entire playoff career, shooting 3-for-18 (looking a lot like Maxey did in Philly on Thursday night) and it was the Knicks turn to end his season.

It just always seemed to be Knicks vs. Pacers in the ’90s, and it was still Knicks vs. Pacers in the spring of 2000. Patrick’s knees were shot by then. The entire Knicks team limped into the Eastern Conference finals. Still the Knicks had enough to play six hard games against the Pacers, Reggie finally closing them out with 34 points in Game 6, what turned out to be Ewing’s last game as a Knick in Madison Square Garden.

And guess what? Even when it was a new generation of Knick and Pacer players in the playoffs of 2013, when we were sure the 54-win Knicks were on their way to play LeBron James and the Heat in the league’s Final Four, there was that moment near the end of Game 6 in Indianapolis when Carmelo Anthony drove the baseline and got stuffed by Roy Hibbert of the Pacers so emphatically you imagined the Garden shaking back in the city, and the Pacers had laid out the Knicks again.

Bottom line on all of this history, now that the Knicks and Pacers get ready to do it again?

Knick fans, young and old and in between, want games like those starting Monday night. They want nights like those. They want what the Knicks of the ’90s had, and what they gave us, even if they never won a title. You had to be there.

THIS ISN’T THE JUDGE WE KNOW, VOLPE SHOULDN’T BE LEADING OFF & A LOT TO TALK ABOUT WITH EMBIID …

Since Aaron Judge returned to the Yankees at the end of July last season, two months after he hurt his toe running into that outfield door at Dodger Stadium, he’s hit .226 in 314 at-bats, hit 24 homers with 53 RBI, with an OPS of .873 and a .494 slugging percentage.

He can still hit balls out of sight, even with his slow start this season.

But he hasn’t looked the same as a hitter since he hurt his toe.

Maybe that all changes starting now.

The Red Sox starting pitching continues to be one of the big stories of the early season in baseball.

I know Buddy Hield had a big night off the bench for the Sixers in Game 6, but how in the world does he end up taking that crazy 3 at the end and not Maxey?

Somehow three young guys who played their college ball in Philly — Brunson, Hart, DiVincenzo — have turned themselves into one of the best New York basketball stories of all time.

It would be a pretty fine New York baseball story, by the way, if Luis Severino has come all the way back.

Anthony Volpe looked like a much tougher out to me before the Yankees force-fed him into the leadoff spot.

But that might just be part of the Yankees sometimes acting almost desperate to turn the kid into the next Derek Jeter.

As if somehow Volpe can make us forget all the kids out of the farm system who never became stars at Yankee Stadium.

It was a layup for Knicks fans to turn on Joel Embiid the way they did, especially after he grabbed Mitchell Robinson’s legs and got away with it.

And it’s also fair to talk about how you couldn’t find him in the fourth quarter of Game 6, not really.

But even playing on one good leg, Embiid dropped 50 on the Knicks in one game.

And he sure had a triple-double in Game 5, even if Game 5 was pretty much Tyrese Maxey’s show.

What Embiid basically did, not even being close to 100%, is remind everybody why he has been one of the stars of the sport when healthy.

Jalen Brunson does make it look as easy as Clyde did sometimes.

Somebody explain to all the Celebrity Row Row Rowers at the Garden that they’re not part of the action.

With the exception of Shelton Spike Lee, of course.

He’s got tenure.

If you have not read Anne Lamott’s new book, “Somehow,” do yourself a favor and buy it today.

As always, she writes with beauty, and clarity, and gives her readers food for the soul.

To paraphrase a great old line by my pal Liz Smith, don’t you wonder who gives Marjorie Taylor Greene the creeps?

I was trying to set up my new laptop on Friday afternoon and it got so confusing, no kidding, I almost called Aaron Rodgers.

I love the NBA saying Maxey should have been called for traveling at the end of Game 5.

Got it.

Now they’re going to start calling traveling.

Brunson dropped another 40-plus game on the 76ers in Philly on Thursday night, finishing off what really had felt like the kind of whole 40-point series that Bernard King had against the Pistons in a 5-game series 40 years ago. And Brunson, the son of an old Knick and a child of Villanova the way his buddies Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo are, totally did a Michael thing by scoring 39 or more points in four consecutive playoff games. Bernard did that. Michael did that. So did Jerry West. So Brunson did walk with kings.

This is the kind of rising we are getting from the Rangers right now, and the way we got a sports rising back in ’17 when we thought the Yankees were going back to the World Series, even if all the Knicks have done at the moment, loud as the moment has become, is make it back to the second round for the third time since 2000.

It doesn’t prevent anybody in town from appreciating what we just saw from Knicks-76ers, one of the best playoff series of any round you will ever see, one that brought back all the old noise and all the memories of Larry Johnson’s 4-point play — even if somebody else, Mr. Maxey, did that to the Knicks this time — and Reggie Miller and a time in the ’90s with the Knicks when we didn’t know how good we had it. In the end, the story and series ended with a bunch of kids who played their college ball in Philly taking down a Philly team by combining to put 80 points on them in Game 6.

The story doesn’t happen without Brunson, who has made himself into the greatest free agent signing in the history of the Knicks and one of the greatest in New York sports history; who is as much the MVP of the league as Nikola Jokic or anybody else; who isn’t just the King of New York right now but as big a star as there is anywhere in professional basketball.

And when it was all on the line in Philly on Thursday, when the Knicks were staring at a Game 7 on Saturday night in the Garden and long after they’d blown that huge first-quarter lead, it was Brunson who made a three and then another three and would end up scoring 14 points from 95-95 to the end of the game, capping all that off by assisting on the Hart 3-pointer from the top of the key, one Hart seemed almost reluctant to shoot at first — maybe because he wasn’t Brunson — that knocked the 76ers all the way into next season.

“I just like the way we kept fighting,” Brunson said when it was over. “I think that’s what we’ve been talking about all year, just make sure we keep fighting no matter what the situation is, we have to stick together and we’re going to fight.”

He had finished his night with 41 points and 12 assists and once again was a swishing-dishing Knick guard the way Clyde Frazier had been. He had finished the series with 167 points over the last four games of it, and doing it did look exactly the way Bernard had looked against the Isiah Thomas and the Pistons in the spring of ’84, another time when the Knicks so badly wanted to play themselves into a series against the Boston Celtics. And Brunson had scored more than 35 points and had more than 10 assists three times against the Sixers, something only Oscar Robertson had ever done in the playoffs.

He had help, you know he did. From the start of this series, Hart showed he was ready to play all day and all night, and rebound like a king himself. Hart started this first-round series with 15 rebounds and finished it with 14. And on a night when the Knicks knew they needed points from someone other than No. 11, DiVincenzo showed up with 23 points that felt like a lot more than that.

The Knicks made us watch them over these six games the way the Knicks of the ’90s used to make us watch when it was them against Michael, when it was them against Reggie and the Pacers, when it was them against Pat Riley and the Heat after Riley left New York for the Heat. That all happened in ’95, Patrick Ewing missing a finger roll in the last seconds of Game 7, the ending to a series that had begun with Reggie Miller scoring eight points in the last 8.9 seconds.

It all came back over the past week or so, the way the Knicks keep coming back, making a first-round series feel — and sound — like more. It wasn’t just the Villanova guys and the way they’ve made the Knick colors look like Villanova-blue-and-orange. It was OG Anunoby and Isaiah Hartenstein, too, all having moments on Thursday night, as the Knicks once and for all were setting up Game 1 against the Pacers on Monday night, Pacers’ colors being back in the Garden at this time of year just one more blast from the past.

None of this happens without Brunson, so much more than the Mavericks thought they had and so much more than the Knicks knew they were getting. No Knick was ever better at this time of year. Now all he’s got to do is do it again.

Oh, sure. The Giants drafted Jones all over again before they got around to taking the star LSU wide receiver, Malik Nabers, with the same No. 6 pick they once used on Jones. They did not move up to take one of the quarterbacks who went with the first three picks. They chose to pass on J.J. McCarthy, choosing to still ride with Jones. Again.

In so doing, they kicked the can down the road one final time with Jones, hoping against hope as they did that it doesn’t turn out to be a tomato can. That’s not the way to root, for sure. Jones has never done anything to make you root against him. I grew up a Giants fan, and still hope every year is going to be the one for the Duke guy.

“We do feel Daniel can play,” John Mara said the day Joe Schoen was introduced as the new Giants general manager, replacing Dave Gettleman, the general manager who selected Jones with the No. 6 pick in the 2019 draft. “We’ve done everything possible to screw this kid up.”

Here is what Schoen said that January day two years ago:

“I know [Jones] is a great kid. I’ve talked to him, the kid has physical ability. There’s not anybody in this building who has said a bad word about his work ethic, passion, desire to win. The kid has talent, physical ability. He’s got arm strength, he’s athletic, he can run.”

Then he showed all of that when the Giants went on the road and won their first postseason game since they beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl of February 2012. Jones got paid right after that, is still getting paid, next season he’s going to be paid $36 million to be the Giants quarterback for a sixth season.

We are told now that the Giants tried to move up to draft Drake Maye out of North Carolina, who went to the Patriots with the third pick. But then why wouldn’t the Giants have been interested? Maye looks the part, does have the arm strength, is athletic, can run. Maybe Schoen fell a little bit in love with this ACC quarterback the way Gettleman did with his.

Didn’t matter in the end. QB 1 with the Giants is Jones, something he has been, when healthy, since he took over for Eli Manning in Eli’s last season, bringing the Giants back from 18 points down against the Bucs in his first career start, completing 23-of-36 passes for 336 yards and two touchdowns, and finally winning the game with a 7-yard touchdown run with 1:18 remaining. In so many ways, at least until the playoff victory against the Vikings, it’s as good as Jones has ever looked as the Giants quarterback. Not only did he make the hearts of Giants fans stand still that day, he really did look like the heir apparent to Eli.

Now, in the fall, will come another in what feels like a long line of make-or-break seasons for him. Except that if he doesn’t finally throw more than 15 touchdown passes in a season for the third time in his career, if the “break” part of make-or-break turns out to be him breaking down again, then the Giants will have to cut him.

The Jets have finally given up on Zach Wilson, whom they drafted even higher in the first round than the Giants drafted Jones. Wilson did end up lasting those three years with the Jets, but they gave up on him after two, making the trade for Aaron Rodgers when they did. The Giants are about to go twice as long with Jones as the Jets did with Wilson, who turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes in Jets history, which is saying plenty. And that he will remain unless Aaron Rodgers, trying to come back from Achilles surgery, gets hurt again in the season when he is going to turn 41, after the Jets haven’t just built a team around him, but practically an addition to the practice facility at 1 Jets Drive.

The Giants? They remain all-in on Jones as they say prayers of their own that McCarthy — the Michigan quarterback who was still on the board when the Giants took Nabers — doesn’t haul off and become the kind of star for the Vikings that the Giants are still hoping Jones can become for them.

There is simply no point in talking about what a really nice young man, and solid football citizen, Daniel Jones is. Across his career in Jersey the Giants have done everything except hire a skywriter to drum home that message. We have seen, in flashes and fits and starts, that he can throw it and run it when he can stay on the field, and when he can hold on to the ball. But he hasn’t stayed on the field lately. There were two different neck injuries and finally the knee injury that took most of last season for him.

After he was gone, the Giants didn’t lose enough games to give themselves a shot at either Jayden Daniels, the Heisman Trophy winner, or Maye, with one of the first three picks. In that way the Giants really did turn into the Jets, and show that they didn’t properly know how to lose. It was admirable the way Brian Daboll’s players kept fighting. The whole Tommy DeVito, Jersey Boys thing was fun while DeVito was winning three in a row. But if they’d ended up at 3-14 instead of 6-11 and behind the Commanders, they would have had their choice between Daniels and Maye on Thursday night.

There are no sure things at quarterback, not anymore, even if you draft No. 2 or No. 3, just ask the Jets (Hey there, Sam Darnold; hey there, Zach). Even people in outer space know that the Chiefs got Patrick Mahomes, one of the greatest players of all time, at No. 10. But Joe Douglas loved Wilson the way Gettleman loved Jones. Gettleman is gone, Jones is still here, coming back from knee surgery, and it’s like the old song says: If the Giants can’t be with the one they love, they’re going to love the one they’re with, at least for one more season.

Once and for all, Jones will stay on the field and be what the Giants hoped he would be, and maybe even take them back to the playoffs. Or he turns out to be the kind of quarterback who gets people fired.

LEBRON SHOULD TURN UP THE HEAT, SOTO HEARS THOSE STADIUM BOOS TOO & ROOTING FOR RAFA …

If LeBron thinks he has one more stop in him, I’ve got a thought for him:

He should think about taking his talents to South Beach.

Put him on that team, and he might just get one more title, for the Heat and for himself.

By the way?

There is no better NBA coach anywhere than Erik Spoelstra, still so very much on his way to the Hall of Fame.

All this time later, I’m still trying to process the fact that the 76ers traded away Jimmy Butler.

You know who two of the real stars on draft night turned out to be, at least on television?

Bill Belichick and Nick Saban.

They turned into the 70-something version of Peyton and Eli.

It wasn’t just Aaron Judge who heard the Stadium booing him the other day.

Juan Soto, who has ears, could hear, too.

Every time there’s some complicated issue with science or politics or just about anything, I wish I had Aaron Rodgers — the Answer Man — on speed dial.

The officiating has been so sketchy in the Knicks-76ers series, I started to worry that Angel Hernandez might have switched sports.

Forget about being a tennis fan, if you’re a sports fan, you have to root that Rafa Nadal has the legs and stamina and game to make some kind of run at the French Open.

If he even makes it as far as the French Open, that is.

Scottie Scheffler is on the kind of run over the past two months that golf hasn’t seen since Tiger was young.

No one is suggesting that he is Tiger.

But right now, he’s playing like Tiger.

At the start of the season, people thought the Oakland A’s might lose about 500 games, and now they come into Yankee Stadium and shut down the Yankees twice in a four-game series.

Jeff Nelson is really good doing Yankee games on YES with my pal Michael Kay.

Is there some point at which even some of the greatest players in the history of UConn women’s basketball start showing Caitlin Clark a little more love?

Speaking of which: The Knicks and Sixers might not even need Ms. Clark to make the whole thing more interesting than it already is after just three games.

Here’s a pro tip for all the Draft People:

When the guy taken with the last pick ends up not just quarterbacking a team into the Super Bowl, but quarterbacking it into overtime of a Super Bowl, he’s no longer Mr. Irrelevant.

Finally today:

A birthday wish this week to our middle son, Alex, the executive producer in the family, one on whom his dad loves to brag.

His full name is Alexander Bene Lupica.

The middle name is after his grandfather.

It fits him like a glove, just because he is kind and good the way Bene Lupica was.

The Knicks have been hit now, mostly by Draymond Embiid, not just low where Embiid got Mitchell Robinson’s legs, and not just in a place slightly higher, where Embiid hit Isaiah Hartenstein with his knee. The Knicks all got hit Thursday night when they had the chance to bury the Sixers and did not.

That is one truth as we look ahead to Game 4 in Philly on Sunday afternoon. Another, and an obvious one, is that Joel Embiid, if he did have the kind of priors Draymond Green does, would have gotten Flagrant 2’d and gotten good and ejected for pulling Robinson down the way he did. The Knicks, and their fans, have a right to yell their heads off about dirty play, and how the refs blew it. But so, too, did the refs blow it at the end of Game 2. No fouls, including flagrant ones in Game 2, lots of harm.

But perhaps the most lasting truth of what we’ve seen in this series so far is that on Thursday night, when the Knicks really could have finished off the Sixers, they let a guy with a bad leg use his good one to kick them from one end of Broad St. to the other in the second half of Game 3, a half that included the 76ers rolling the Knicks for 43 points in the third quarter.

Tom Thibodeau was remarkably subdued on Thursday night (despite doing a tremendous job with his messaging) about Embiid and the free throw disparity his team encountered on the road, a lament as old in the playoffs as the Jersey Turnpike.

When the subject of flagrant fouls and Embiid was raised, Thibodeau drily asked, “Which one?” But then Thibodeau told a truth of his own when he simply said, “We gotta do better.”

To his team’s credit, it did not simply start looking ahead to Game 4 after Embiid and the Sixers seemed to make every shot they took in the third quarter. Jalen Brunson was back to doing Brunson things, on his way to a 39-point night. Josh Hart contributed 20 more points, six rebounds, six assists, continuing to play like a star. And the Knicks were still hanging around in the fourth quarter in a game the Sixers should have long since put away, getting the lead down to eight before some bad turnovers, one of them committed by Brunson.

But the story of this game, in all ways, was Embiid: Because what was clearly the cheapest of shots on Robinson; because Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that Embiid has been suffering from a case of Bell’s palsy; mostly because the former MVP of the league, even as he still looks as if he’s sometimes walking in a swimming pool, became only the third player in history to score 50 or more against the Knicks in a playoff game. Michael Jordan was the last to do it, 31 years ago (Sam Jones of the Celtics did it in 1967). Was Embiid helped mightily by getting to shoot 21 free throws, and making 19? If you saw the game, you know that he was. It doesn’t change the fact that he got to 50 and, for the one night, one his team desperately needed, he looked like the guy who could get an MVP award away from Nikola Jokic.

And, just like that, everybody moved on from one of the best playoff endings, in Game 2, any Knicks team ever had, and one of the worst the Sixers have ever had, the Knicks scoring the last eight points, in the last half-minute, to win. That was a Larry Johnson of an ending at the Garden, with some Reggie Miller thrown in, the Knicks doing to the Sixers what Reggie had done to them once when he scored the last eight at the Garden, in even less time than the Knicks did it last Monday night.

One thing is for certain: When this thing does return to New York and to the Garden next week, Embiid will hear it from the crowd the way Reggie did in the old days, when he became Public Enemy No. 1 with Knicks fans, when it was the Knicks and Pacers who had the kind of bad blood we are now seeing from these two teams this week.

Put it another way: Even though the Knicks didn’t get the Heat in the first round, this series has turned into the same kind of blood feud we used to get from those two teams in the old days, when it was Jeff Van Gundy holding on to Alonzo Mourning’s legs and not Embiid hanging on to Robinson’s.

The 76ers got hit at the end of Game 2, especially with a huge call, in plain sight, not made against Tyrese Maxey, and the timeout the refs didn’t give Nick Nurse that might have changed everything. An ending like that, even in the second game of the series, could have ended the 76ers if they let it. They did not. They got back up when they got back home, even though they were still trailing the Knicks at halftime.

Then a great player who had made a dirty play in the first half simply did great things in the second. The Sixers and their fans stopped by the outrage factory after Game 2. Knick fans made the same stop after Game 3. Game on. Mike Tyson was the one who said everybody’s got a plan until they get hit. We see on Sunday what kind of plan the Knicks have against a guy — Embiid — who turned into the baddest man on the planet Thursday night.

He has been the coach of the Knicks at the time when they have mattered more than they have in a long time. He has done this kind of work 40 years after he first became a head coach, at his alma mater, Salem State. Thibodeau has moved around a lot since then, been Coach of the Year, gotten knocked down, gotten paid, gotten fired with the Timberwolves when he was running the whole operation.

Finally he ended up at the Garden, where he has done as much to shape the talent in the room and the character of his team as much as anybody else, and that includes the big basketball boss there, Leon Rose. Thibs is 66 now, which is old in a young man’s game. It doesn’t change the fact that he is doing the best work of his career.

Now he and the Knicks are in the barrel against the 76ers, who probably would have gotten the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference that the Knicks themselves ended up with if Joel Embiid hadn’t gotten hurt. And even before the Sixers outlasted the Heat in that terrific play-in game the other night in what looked like a rock fight of a basketball game, Thibodeau was ready for them, one season having just ended and another one about to begin.

“We started putting the framework in and [focusing on] what similarities [the Sixers and Heat] have,” Thibodeau said Wednesday afternoon at the Knicks practice facility. “What are the things we have to take away, or what we should be aware of?”

It is what the best coaches do. They look to take just enough away from the other team to win the game, win the series. Now he is asked to do that with Embiid and Tyrese Maxey at the same time Nick Nurse, who coached the Raptors all the way to the championship once, is looking to do the same with a Knicks team looking to make it to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 24 years.

There is a commonality to the toughness of the two teams, because of the way the 76ers hung in there until Embiid finally came back from his knee injury, and the way the Knicks hung in there after Mitchell Robinson got hurt and after Julius Randle landed wrong on his shoulder that night against the Heat in January and OG Anunoby, who has turned out to be one of the best in-season trades the Knicks have ever made, banged up his elbow before he came back, and has become as crucial to the Knick prospects in the playoffs as Randle would have been.

But the personality of the Knicks starts with their flinty coach, who comes out of the School of Jeff Van Gundy, who was the coach the last time the Knicks did make it to the conference finals, the year after they shocked the world by making it all the way from the No. 8 seed in the East to the NBA Finals. Thibodeau doesn’t back up and they don’t back up. He gets ready for the next game, in his thorough and professional way. He doesn’t make headlines. Again: What he has done is make the Knicks matter again. In the process he has taken his place behind the great Red Holzman and Pat Riley and Van Gundy as the best coaches the Knicks have ever had.

Mike Woodson also did a terrific job here the last time the Knicks won more than 50 games in a season. The Knicks had big ideas in that basketball spring over a decade ago about making it to the finals of the East and getting a shot at LeBron and the Heat, before getting upset by the Pacers. Woody at least made it to the second round, something Thibodeau didn’t do in New York until last season. But Thibodeau has to know that even with Embiid, a former MVP as an opponent, the Knicks are supposed to do a lot more this time than just make it out of the first round.

When the Knicks beat the Bulls last Sunday in overtime despite that a loss might have given them a slightly easier road in the playoffs, here is all Thibodeau said about that:

“Really? I mean, the object is to win. Put everything you have into winning. That’s the bottom line.”

When he got the Knicks job, the Knicks shocked everybody by going 41-31 in a COVID-altered season, and getting the No. 4 seed in the conference before getting bounced by the Hawks, No. 5, in the first round. Then the whole league bounced the Knicks around the next year, and the record went back to 37-45, and the Knicks looked so much like so many losing Knick teams we’d seen before Thibodeau came back to the Garden.

But the Knicks got right back up. They turned the record around last season and still have a right to think they could have beaten the Heat in the second round if Randle had been healthy. Now Jalen Brunson has become one of the stars of the league and the Knicks have played through their injuries and ended up winning 50. Thibodeau’s overall won-loss record in the regular season is now 527-389. It makes him one of the biggest guys in his profession. He just seems bigger in New York right now because of the way things could have gone sideways over the second half because of the injuries, even with the way Brunson has balled.

Thibodeau has gotten all the proper respect for that. Sometimes you think the coach doesn’t get enough, as he continues to hear that he plays his guys too many minutes (somewhat ironic in a season when Donte DiVincenzo didn’t play enough minutes to qualify for Most Improved Player. What he does, in the words of old friend Herm Edwards, is play to win the game. He himself said it last week: “The object is to win.”

Here is something Van Gundy said about his old friend a couple of years ago:

“One of the things I most admire about Tom, is that he knows what not to compromise on, and what to compromise on. People says he’s too rigid. Well, not on the big stuff he’s not…..His teams just constantly reflect a stubborn obstinance to beating themselves. My respect level what he stands for, every single day, is immeasurable.”

For now Tom Thibodeau is the top top-manager in town, in any sport. He’s done this at the Garden, working for James L. Dolann, no easy thing even in the best of times. He’s done it and keeps doing it in New York. You know why? He knows how.

RODGERS IS THE VILLAGE IDIOT, SPORTS GAMBLING A GROWING VIRUS & ALONSO IS BEATING HEART OF METS …

Here is something Aaron Rodgers, who thinks he knows everything about everything, said about Dr. Anthony Fauci last month, when he suggested the U.S. government “created” the AIDS epidemic:

“The blueprint, the game plan, was made in the ’80s. Create a pandemic with a virus that’s going wild. Fauci was given over $350 million to research this, to come up with drugs — new or repurposed — to handle the AIDS pandemic. And all they came up with was AZT … But that was the game plan back then. Create an environment where only one thing works. Back then AZT; now, Remdesivir until we get a vaccine.”

So nothing changes with Rodgers: He has been a genius playing football and the village idiot on so many different subjects you lose count.

And, with more bonehead comments about Dr. Fauci, really does sound like somebody yelling at you as you make your way across Central Park.

Or maybe just the buffet at a psychiatrist’s convention.

Once again you want to ask him how, if he’s on such a warpath with pharmaceutical companies, he keeps cashing all those checks from Mr. Woody Johnson & Johnson.

I love it, no kidding, when people talk about how boring Scottie Scheffler is, even when he’s playing the kind of golf that immortals in that sport play.

They must think that Tiger Woods had more personality than Lee Trevino once did on a golf course when Tiger didn’t have a driver in his hands.

If you think Jontay Porter, formerly of the Raptors, is going to be the last professional athlete to get clipped because of gambling, than you also think that cows can fly.

And if you think our sports leagues can save themselves because of all the monitoring they’re able to do on betting, then see the above sentence.

Sports gambling has become a virus in this country, no matter how many famous athletes sell it to you in commercials or not.

If the Mets keep playing good baseball, don’t forget the rainy day in April when they had been no-hit into the 8th inning and were about to go to 0-6 before Pete Alonso tied the game with a 9th-inning homer and Tyrone Taylor won it later the same inning.

You know what the Polar Bear was in that moment?

What he has been for a while now at Citi Field:

The beating heart of the New York Mets.

What everybody is saying about John Sterling is true since we learned of his retirement:

Baseball summers just aren’t going to sound the same around here.

You are going to love Anthony Horowitz’s new Hawthorne mystery, “Close to Death.”

I heard after the Masters that Greg Norman bought a ticket to watch the tournament.

But there was no ticket he could buy that got him into the Champions Dinner, right?

Those fans will be looking for some Jalensanity.

They will be looking for that, and for the start of the playoffs to look like the end of the regular season, when the Knicks stepped on it the way they did and ended up with the second seed in the Eastern Conference, and the 2 vs. 7 matchup in the first round. Now we see that the 7 they have rolled is Embiid and the Sixers, and not going another round, something else out of the past, with the Heat.

You know how long the idea of Embiid somehow ending up in a Knicks uniform has been a part of the narrative in basketball New York, just because he was supposed to be the kind of superstar MVP guy the Knicks needed to get them to where they wanted to go at this time of year. Only now the Knicks, and their fans, have the (growing) belief that this team, even without Julius Randle, can at least make it back to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2000.

And the biggest reason for that belief is Jalen Brunson, child of the Garden, now that the Knicks have somebody of their own playing exactly like a superstar now. It is Brunson, whose father played here, the 6-2 guard out of Villanova by way of the Dallas Mavericks who has turned out to be so much more of a player — so much more important, period — than the Knicks could have ever expected him to be.

Everybody saw, and not just in New York, that he has just concluded one of the most dazzling regular seasons that any Knick has ever had. We showed you the stats the other day in the Sunday Daily News: Other than the season 40 years ago when Bernard King averaged a tick under 33 points per game, Brunson is right there and right now with any scoring season a Knick has ever had, all the way through Patrick Ewing and back to Richie Guerin.

He scored 40 or more points 11 times. He scored 40 or more in consecutive games. He put 61 on the Spurs. Say it again: There isn’t a player in the league who has been more valuable than Brunson has been to this Knicks team, not Nikola Jokic or Luka Doncic or even Embiid when he is healthy, and making the Sixers look like a powerhouse. It is why Brunson being snubbed by Team USA, at least for now, and possibly cheated out of a trip to Paris for the Olympics, is so plain stupid. Seriously, who really picked the guys on this aging team, LeBron and Kevin Durant?

None of that matters on Saturday night. What matters is that in the season the Knicks are playing, Brunson and his teammates have to go through Embiid, with whom the Sixers are 31-8 this season. They are a force and he is a force when he’s healthy. The problem for his team is that he didn’t look healthy against the Heat, occasionally looking as if he were moving underwater as he made his way up and down the court.

April 12, 2024: Big time

Brunson, though, is very much at full strength, despite having had to carry the Knicks for months. The guy who played his college ball in Philly, will now go up against a terrific Philly guard named Tyrese Maxey, the kid who will be such a dangerous wing man for Embiid in this Knicks-76ers series. It was not so long ago, remember, that you could have a reasonable debate about whether you thought Brunson or Maxey was the better guard, and might not be called crazy if you picked Maxey.

Listen: There is no more dangerous first-round opponent for the Knicks than the Sixers, even with Embiid looking diminished. But this is the game and the series we get, and the Knicks get. The will be home in the Garden on Saturday night because they beat the Bulls in overtime last Sunday afternoon and because the Sixers came back in the second half to beat the Heat in that play-in game on Wednesday night, no matter how gassed Embiid looked at the end.

The Knicks get after them now with all the orange-and-(Villanova) blue they have thrown at the Eastern Conference regular season. Even without Randle, they try to play in April the way they did in February, when they were balling as well as the Celtics or anybody else once the trade was made for OG Anunoby. They weren’t supposed to get the No. 2 seed without Randle. They did. They weren’t supposed to win 50. They did. Now here they are.

“I think [the Knicks] are for real,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said after the play-in game. “I think they earned that seed.”

They did. Their fans saw it all year long, when the Knicks had all their players and when they did not. So much of their appeal really has made this feel like Linsanity, just for a lot longer than a couple of weeks. They’ve been that good and that tough and that much fun. The Sixers didn’t have Embiid, their best player, for half the season. The Knicks lost Randle, their second-best player, for good in January.

New season. Old times at the Garden.

They have made themselves into that kind of feel-good story, the kind of big, surprise story that we are always looking for in sports. They weren’t supposed to become what they’ve become, especially once they lost Julius Randle for the season, whether we knew he was gone for good when he landed wrong on his shoulder or not. They weren’t supposed to be this kind of team, the way Jalen Brunson wasn’t supposed to become the kind of full-fledged and in-lights NBA star.

Brunson is a total star as a point guard in what is still a point-guard city. He has become the best point guard the Knicks have had since Walt (Clyde) Frazier. And he is now, at 27, in the process of having one of the best individual seasons any Knick has ever had, at any position. Knick fans know that if he hadn’t elevated his own game and his team the way he has, that team would soon be looking at play-in games.

Here is a real nice frame of reference for where Brunson, who was supposed to be Randle’s wing man when he got here from Dallas, ranks with the best Knick scorers for a single season:

1. Bernard King (1984-85): 32.9
2. Richie Guerin (1961-62): 29.5
3. Carmelo Anthony (2012-13): 28.7
4. Patrick Ewing (1989-90): 28.6
5. Jalen Brunson (2023-24): 28.6
6. Carmelo Anthony (2013-14): 27.4
7. Patrick Ewing (1990-91): 26.6
8. Bob McAdoo (1977-78): 26.5
9. Bernard King (1983-84): 26.3
10. Amar’e Stoudemire (2010-11): 25.

We have all seen what he’s done lately, when the late-season games have mattered the most. When it looked as if there was a chance that the Knicks could drop in the standings, Brunson has risen up again, and made sure that the Knicks rose up with him. Say it again: He won’t win the MVP award this season, but he is every bit as valuable to the Knicks as Nikola Jokic — as much The Man in Denver as ever before — has been to the Nuggets or Luka Doncic, his old teammate, has been to the Mavericks.

Through Thursday night he had scored at least 35 points in five straight games. He had scored more than 30 in seven of his last eight games. He has averaged 38.5 in the run he is having, and has shot better than 50%.

“He has been the best player in the Eastern Conference by far,” an old Archbishop Molloy guard named Kenny Smith said the other night on “Inside the NBA.”

Brunson, of course, addressed another loud night from him in his predictably quiet and understated way after the Knicks had put it on the Celtics the way they had.

“We made shots and made the right plays,” he said. “Obviously, we know they’re the top dog in the East. Whenever you play against them, it’s always a good measuring stick to see where you’re at. We played pretty well, but we know what they’re capable of doing. We just had their number tonight.”

He had the numbers again, 39 points this time, in just 30 minutes. The Knicks continued to be the most fun sports story in town, as well as the Rangers have played this season and as well as the Yankees have played in the early innings of the baseball season. They lost Randle for good. They lost OG Anonoby, with whom they played their best ball of the season after he got here from Toronto, for a good chunk of time. They lost Mitchell Robinson. Isaiah Hartenstein has missed some games. Josh Hart has been overworked, constantly. But when these Knicks had to show up in April, they did, with a hard eye on May and June.

This is the kind of fun we had exactly 25 years ago, when the Knicks came from the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference and ended up making it all the way to the NBA Finals, beating Coach Riley and the Heat in the first round that year, beating them in a most memorable Game 5 when Allan Houston made a runner at the end. That was not supposed to happen, either. The best stories never are.

I’ve thought for a long time, and haven’t been alone in that thought, that the Knicks needed a big player to be a big team again. Only now Brunson, at 6-2, a New York City point guard just because he grew up at the Garden when his dad was a Knick, has become as big a player as there is in the league.

The Knicks have done a little bit of everything this season, and now they have finally beaten the Celtics, the best regular-season team in the whole league. Even without Randle, the sides finally looked even. Only they weren’t even on this night, because even with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown on the other team, Brunson was the best player in the gym. By a lot.

“It’s special,” Anunoby said of Brunson when the game was over. “The way he plays, the things he can do, it’s definitely special. He’s one of the best in the league. He’s playing like an MVP. He should win MVP.”

He won’t win it. The Knicks might not have enough behind Brunson to make a deep run in the postseason, as much as they keep trying to convince us to believe our eyes and think they can. But they aren’t just the best team since Jeff Van Gundy was still the coach and Tom Thibodeau was sitting next to him on the bench. They have just become the best show in town, which is why the fans and the Garden have come to them the way they have.

We all know the old line in New York about how the baseball season didn’t start, not really, until the Knicks stopped, and that means even when Joe Torre’s Yankees were still great. It might be that way again this spring. The Celtics are still loaded. Even after Thursday night, the Bucks were still ahead of the Knicks. Joel Embiid is back, wherever the 76ers are in the standings. And the Heat, well, you know.

It doesn’t change who the Knicks are, and what they have done to here, sometimes against pretty serious odds. When the playoffs do begin, that sound you will be hearing is the sound once known as the Monster of Madison Square Garden. This time of year. That sound. You remember.

OHTANI NEEDS TO DITCH HIS ACCOUNTANT, GOLF MORE INTERESTING WITH TIGER & CAN’T DEBATE CAITLIN’S IMPACT …

After Shohei Ohtani fired his interpreter, his next move should have been firing his accountant.

Unless his accountant thought the missing $16 million was just pocket change to his guy.

The Masters says goodbye this weekend to the great Verne Lundquist, who isn’t merely one of the best golf broadcasters of all time, he’s one of the great sports broadcasters of all time.

And one of the finest gents I have ever been fortunate enough to know in this business.

There are so many things about which to root for with the Jets.

The owner isn’t one of them.

And will never be one of them.

The Jets were better off when he bought himself that gig being Ambassador to the Court of St. James.

Everything that once made Tiger Woods a champion was on display on Friday when he had to play 23 holes, at Augusta National on a day when it turned into a wind tunnel.

He is 48 now.

As well as he can still hit a golf ball, he is a mile away from the kind of golf he played even five years ago to win his 5th green jacket, before that automobile accident in southern California that could easily have killed him.

But no matter where he hit it on Friday, he somehow managed to hang around near par, and keep getting up and down for pars.

And reminded you all over again why the sport is still so much more interesting when he’s the one hanging around.

You only wear those hats the LIV guys are wearing at The Masters if you lost a bet.

Jordan Spieth looked as if he was going to be the new king of professional golf once.

Now he’s the king of great big numbers, like that 9 he made on No. 15 on Friday.

Steph and the Dubs have gotten really fun again lately.

It is worth repeating something David Cone told me about the Yankees’ starting rotation back in 1998, for the best Yankee team of them all.

It was him, Andy Pettitte, Boomer Wells, El Duque Hernandez, even old friend Hideki Irabu (13-9 that year).

“None of us spent any time on the injured list,” David said. “Think about that in terms of what’s happening right now in the modern game.”

By the way?

People who think the pitch clock has something to do with all these elbow injuries have rocks in their heads.

To paraphrase the old James Carville line about the economy:

It’s the spin rate, stupid.

And the velocity.

Anything else really is just stupid spin.

You can continue to debate whether or not Caitlin Clark is the best player in the history of women’s college basketball.

What is not in debate now, nor will it ever be, is that she is the single best thing that has ever happened to women’s basketball.

College or pro.

The NBA wishes it could get television ratings like hers.

You hear all the time that you shouldn’t define people by the worst moment of their life.

With O.J.?

Go right ahead.