That’s how many regular-season games the Knicks have left.

It’s the number of opportunities a depleted New York roster will get to retain its playoff standing.

The free-fall is in full effect at Madison Square Garden, where a Knicks team without its entire starting frontcourt has lost nine of its last 12 games — including Tuesday’s 16-point loss to the No. 10 Atlanta Hawks in a matchup both Jalen Brunson (bruised knee) and Trae Young (hand surgery) missed due to injury.

Without Brunson — who luckily evaded a serious injury and is working to return to play soon — a Knicks team already short Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder), OG Anunoby (right elbow surgery) and Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery) couldn’t expose a porous Atlanta Hawks defense.

It was one of the Knicks’ ugliest losses of the season.

Such is the status quo — ugly — at The Garden of Dreams, where a roster stretched thin is beginning to reach its limits.

And while it’s unfair to cast higher expectations onto a team missing such core players, the Knicks — shorthanded or not — still need every win they can get, with Tuesday’s inexplicable loss to Atlanta a costly blunder in the standings.

The Orlando Magic, who own the season series against the Knicks, 3-0, leapfrogged New York as the new fourth seed in the East on Tuesday.

The Knicks have fallen to fifth and are only a half-game ahead of the No. 6 Miami Heat.

No. 7 Philadelphia and No. 8 Indiana are within striking distance, too, and 76ers MVP Joel Embiid is expected to return from a meniscus injury soon.

Only 1.5 games separate No. 4 Orlando from No. 8 Indiana, which means the fifth-place Knicks are closer to falling to eighth in East than they are to climbing to the No. 3 seed.

Make no mistake: The No. 3 seed is in play the second Randle, Anunoby and Brunson suit up in the starting lineup once again — and bonus points if Robinson is able to return as a dominant force in the paint this season.

A mostly healthy Knicks team won 13 games in the 16 immediately following the Anunoby trade.

The front office then traded Quentin Grimes, Evan Fournier, Malachi Flynn, Ryan Arcidiacono and a pair of second-round picks at the deadline to the Detroit Pistons for Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks.

When healthy, the Knicks project as a deep team, solid on both ends of the floor with an emphasis on threes and rebounding.

And they are led by players coaches voted into the 2024 All-Star Game in Brunson and Randle, who couldn’t attend due to his shoulder injury.

The Knicks know their fortunes will turn the moment they get their horses back on the floor.

“At the end of the day, I feel if this team gets healthy, we can make noise,” veteran forward Josh Hart said after Tuesday’s loss to the Hawks. “Obviously, you don’t want to be in The Play-In. You’d like to have that three or five days of rest going into the first round.

“It’s a cliché Thibs thing, but we’re just trying to take it one day at a time. Obviously, we’re going to get guys back soon, but we have to keep pushing. At the end of the day, we are where we are, and I like this team.”

Which brings us back to the magic number: 20. Twenty games left to decide the Knicks’ standing.

Of those 20 games, 11 are against teams with winning records.

And of those 11 games, seven come in the month of March, with three in a row coming Friday against the Magic, then games both Sunday and Tuesday at home against the Sixers.

Another three will cap a four-game road trip, beginning in Portland then hitting Sacramento, Golden State and Denver, home of the reigning NBA champions.

Injury timelines on Randle and Anunoby are not yet clear, though it would appear Anunoby is further along the rehab process than Randle.

The Knicks are hopeful at least one of the two are back before the end of the month. If both were to return by March 30, the Knicks would have nine games mostly healthy to regain chemistry heading into the playoffs.

Now for some housekeeping.

It would behoove the Knicks not to finish with a seed destined to meet the league-best Boston Celtics in the second round.

Seeds six and seven avoid the Celtics until the Conference Finals, as do seeds two and three, though the Knicks are likely out of the running given their injury situation.

The shorthanded Knicks, of course, cannot be picky. With Randle, Anunoby and Robinson out due to injury, New York will be lucky not to fall into Play-In Tournament territory before their stars return to the court.

And when they do, the process begins all over again.

Randle, for example, is a bruiser who throws his right shoulder into his opponent’s chest. How will he adjust his game now with a shoulder in potential need of offseason surgery?

Anunoby hit a good scoring rhythm shortly before he left the rotation. He’ll need time to find his flow again, too.

And after being thrust into roles requiring more output, players like Hart, Deuce McBride, Precious Achiuwa and Bogdanovic will need to re-adjust to playing alongside the stars.

Just 20 games left, maybe less than half after the Knicks get some familiar faces back on the roster.

It’s a tight window, but if any team has proven an ability to adapt on the fly, it’s these Knicks, who are biding time until their stars return to save the day.

The latest defeat: a disappointing 116-100 loss to an Atlanta Hawks team without All-Star guard Trae Young (hand surgery).

The Knicks entered the matchup with the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference but fell to fifth after Tuesday’s loss at The Garden.

The Orlando Magic have leapfrogged the standings and sit fourth; the Knicks are fifth, the Miami Heat sixth, Philadelphia is now seventh and the Indiana Pacers sit eighth.

And only two games separate the East’s No. 4 seed from eighth place in the conference.

This means while things are getting good for fans seeking spirited basketball to end the regular season, the status quo couldn’t be worse for a Knicks team in arm’s reach of the East’s No. 2 seed back in January.

The Knicks were on a steamroller after trading for OG Anunoby and rattled off 13 wins in the first 16 games after the deal.

Anunoby (right elbow surgery) got hurt. Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder) did, too. Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery) was already out before the pair of forwards went down.

And Jalen Brunson was the latest addition to the injury report, missing Tuesday’s matchup against the Hawks after sustaining a bruised knee on Sunday against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Without the offensive firepower — and Anunoby’s defensive presence — the Knicks have now lost nine of their last 13 games.

For a team many considered dark horse contenders to make an Eastern Conference Finals appearance, the sudden-death Play-In Tournament never felt so real.

Veteran forward Josh Hart says he doesn’t think about the standings too much, but he also knows the Knicks are a different, more dominant team when they can get their injured players back on the court.

“At the end of the day, I feel if this team gets healthy, we can make noise,” Hart said after the loss on Tuesday. “Obviously, you don’t want to be in the Play-In. You’d like to have that three or five days of rest going int the first round.

“It’s a cliché Thibs thing, but we’re just trying to take it one day at a time. Obviously, we’re going to get guys back soon, but we have to keep pushing. At the end of the day, we are where we are, and I like this team.”

Young’s absence didn’t make the Hawks any better on defense — but the Knicks were unable to take advantage of the shoddy Atlanta defense.

In fact, the three-point-happy Knicks shot just 3-of-16 from downtown in the first quarter despite getting several open looks courtesy of a Hawks rotation perpetually several seconds.

It didn’t matter.

The Knicks shot 16-of-52 (30.8 percent) from downtown on the night, lost on the glass, 51-40, and were uncharacteristically poor taking care of the ball with 11 turnovers on the night, including a number of costly errors in the opening period.

In short, they violated the main tenets of Tom Thibodeau’s basketball philosophy: force the defense to collapse to generate open threes, win the rebound margin, don’t give the ball away.

New York trailed by as many as 22 and never led in a wire-to-wire victory for the lottery-bound Hawks.

The Knicks can’t afford to play this poorly with the players who are out of the rotation.

“We’re doing everything we can,” said fill-in starter Miles “Deuce” McBride, who played a team-high 45 minutes in the loss to the Hawks. “We’re doing as much as we can recovery wise, the guys that are playing big minutes, and working on the chemistry — guys coming in and out. It’s tough but you’ve gotta keep on moving forward.”

The Knicks signed backup guard Shake Milton after he cleared waivers via the Detroit Pistons, but he did not play against the Hawks on Tuesday.

The Knicks now get two days of rest before hosting the Orlando Magic on Friday.

The Knicks are 0-3 against the Magic this season, including an 18-point loss in a game Brunson went for 33 points.

Brunson’s status is unknown for Friday against Orlando, adding to a growing list of reasons why the Knicks are freefalling in a dicey second half of the season.

Brunson sat against the Atlanta Hawks after a scary play in the opening moments of the Knicks’ matchup in Cleveland.

The star guard came off of a pin-down screen on the Knicks’ opening possession and hurt his knee while raising up for a foul line jump shot.

]He then hobbled to the sidelines, sat on the court and had a team trainer help assist him to the locker room.

An MRI on Brunson’s knee came back clean, but the star guard was unable to suit up against the Hawks on Tuesday.

“It is a bruise and it’s a lot better than it was, but we just want to make sure he’s completely ready,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said ahead of tipoff against the Hawks. “He’s feeling better. Just not quite there yet. … When he’s ready to go, he goes.

“In the meantime, just like what we did the last game: Deuce [McBride] get in there, get the job done. We’ve got Alec [Burks]. So we’ve got more than enough.”

Thibodeau said there was a sigh of relief when his star guard turned up without a severe injury.

“Yeah, and I think the same holds true for all: You don’t want to see any of your players get hurt,” he said. “I know the commitment that our guys have made, the sacrifices they’ve made. Obviously, you want to be at full strength.

“But injuries are part of the game and it’s ‘How quickly can we adapt as a team?’ That’s the challenge that we face. As I mentioned the other night, it’s been that way all year. Mitch [Robinson] went out, Isaiah [Hartenstein] got in there, got it done; then Isaiah had limitations, Jericho [Sims] went and Precious [Achiuwa] came so whatever we have, get in there and get it done.”

Brunson is the fourth current Knicks starter to sustain an injury.

The Knicks were already short their entire starting front court, including Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery), Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder) and OG Anunoby (right elbow surgery) before Brunson came up hobbling in Cleveland on Sunday.

The first-time All-Star guard is averaging 27.2 points and 6.6 assists per game in New York this season and tied Milwaukee Buck’s star Damian Lillard for the Eastern Conference’s final All-Star starting backcourt spot this season.

Lillard got the nod amassing 700,000 more fan votes than Brunson even though Brunson won on both the player and media All-Star ballot.

The Knicks now have another star’s shoes to fill.

The Knicks have help to sustain his absence: Miles “Deuce” McBride has played well in his extended minutes after the Immanuel Quickley trade; the Knicks acquired scoring wing Alec Burks as part of the Bojan Bogdanovic deal with the Detroit Pistons; and the team introduced backup point guard Shake Milton after signing him to a free agent contract on Monday.

Milton was traded to the nine-win Pistons before negotiating a buyout and immediately joining the Knicks when he cleared waivers.

“Size. Versatility. Can play both positions,” Thibodeau said of his team’s newest addition. “He’s a guard. He’s been in the league for a while. I thought he had some really good stretches in Philadelphia. And we just like who he is.”

Milton marks the third midseason addition this Knicks team has made after trading for Anunoby, then Bogdonavic and Burks.

He is a career 35.7 percent three-point shooter and combo guard who spent the first five seasons of his career in Philadelphia before signing with the Minnesota Timberwolves over the summer.

The Wolves traded Milton to the Pistons in exchange for backup point guard Monte Morris.

“The situation in Detroit, knowing what direction they wanted to go (tanking for the draft),” Milton explained to reporters at his locker ahead of tipoff on Tuesday. “[I] just talked to my agent and the front office of the Knicks, and felt like it would be a good fit.”

Milton said a relationship with Knicks senior basketball advisor William Wesley fast-tracked his move to New York.

“Yeah most definitely. Just the comfortability,” he said. “I didn’t want any promises or anything like that. I knew my job was to come in, be a part of the team, work hard and be ready for any opportunity. Honestly that’s what I was looking for. Just to be able to join these guys, get under Coach Thibs and really just study, learn and be prepared.”

Milton said he has a good relationship with Brunson, who went to a couple youth basketball camps together. He and both Burks and Charlie Brown Jr. played together in Philadelphia, and he knows players like Anunoby, Donte DiVincenzo from their battles against one another as opponents.

He has a relationship with Julius Randle because both hang out in Dallas, Randle’s hometown.

Milton also said Thibodeau is the kind of coach he likes to play for.

“I don’t know, I feel like those are the type of coaches that I like, that I’m used to: old-school, tough, right to the point,” he said on Tuesday. “But it’s funny, you can kind of see the personality come out. And I haven’t even been here that long, but even at shoot around, he’s tough, he’s on guys, but at the same time he’s cracking jokes, too, so kinda able to see both sides of it. It’ll be fun.”

Milton joins a Knicks team that lost eight of the 11 games prior to Sunday’s victory over the Cavaliers.

The Knicks entered Milton’s Tuesday debut against the Atlanta Hawks as the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference, but only a half-game separates New York from No. 5 Philadelphia and there’s only 2.5 games worth of distance between the fourth seed and the eighth.

With Brunson joining a long list of Knicks starters on the injured list, Milton could play an integral role in helping the Knicks retain playoff standing in the second half of the season.

“I can tell — I haven’t been around too long but being out there at shootaround, you can tell guys are locked in,” he said. “Every win is important. I think that’s where everybody’s head is. Everybody’s gotta do whatever it takes for the team to help us win. You like being around an atmosphere like that.”

Jalen Brunson left Sunday’s matchup with an apparent knee injury on the game’s first possession, but the Knicks held on for a much-needed victory over the No. 2-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Brunson left the game on the Knicks’ opening possession.

The Knicks’ All-Star point guard came up hobbled after a mid-range pull-up jumper on New York’s first possession of the game on Sunday.

The Knicks were already down Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder), OG Anunoby (right elbow surgery) and Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery) before team trainers helped Brunson to the locker room early into the first quarter.

Head coach Tom Thibodeau turned to reserve point guard Miles McBride, who played 47 minutes and finished with 16 points and five assists on four-of-nine shooting from downtown on the night.

CLEVELAND ALSO MISSED ALL-STAR GUARD DONOVAN MITCHELL SUNDAY NIGHT

Mitchell, who is averaging 28 points per game this season, missed his second straight game against the Knicks with a knee injury.

DIVO AND BOGEY STEPPED UP IN BRUNSON’S ABSENCE

Without Brunson, who is averaging 27.7 points per game, starting guard Donte DiVincenzo and reserve forward Bojan Bogdanovic picked up the scoring slack.

DiVincenzo scored a game-high 28 points and made six threes on the night, and Bogdanovic added 20 off the bench on 8-of-15 shooting from the field.

Sam Merrill hit seven threes for the Cavaliers, but no Cleveland starter scored 20 points against the Knicks.

Former All-Star point guard Darius Garland shot five-of-eight from downtown for 19 points, but Knicks forward Josh Hart triple-doubled with 13 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists in Cleveland on Sunday.

Isaiah Hartenstein (left Achilles tendinopathy) played 23 minutes and finished with eight points, seven rebounds and eight assists, and the Knicks secured a victory after losing eight of the 11 games entering Sunday night.

NEW YORK’S SCHEDULE GETS TOUGHER FROM HERE

The Knicks were underdogs against the No. 2 Cavaliers before both Mitchell and Brunson were ruled out due to injury.

Five of New York’s next seven opponents boast records above-.500.

The Knicks are now 13-23 against teams with winning records after Sunday’s victory over the Cavaliers.

New York retained its standing as the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference and knocked Cleveland down to No. 3 in the East.

The Milwaukee Bucks are now second in the conference after Sunday’s action.

The Knicks enter Monday a half-game in front of the Philadelphia 76ers, who are without MVP center Joel Embiid (meniscus surgery).

New York is a game in front of the Orlando Magic, a game-and-a-half in front of the Miami Heat and and 2.5 games in front of the Indiana Pacers. They have a 7.5-game cushion on the ninth-place Chicago Bulls.

Next up, the Knicks face the tenth-place Atlanta Hawks, who are without All-Star guard Trae Young, who is out for a month with a hand injury.

The Hawks game is part of a four-game home stand at Madison Square Garden: The Knicks will also host the Orlando Magic, then play the Philadelphia 76ers twice in three days.

The Knicks then embark on a four-game road trip: at Portland, at Sacramento, at Golden State and at Denver.

Anunoby is expected to return to New York’s rotation in mid-to-late March, but if Brunson is out an extended period of time after Sunday’s knee injury, the Knicks could have bigger fish to fry if their floor general can’t suit up.

A Knicks team already short its second-, third- and fourth-best players just lost its floor general in Jalen Brunson to a freak knee injury on Sunday.

On the game’s second possession, Brunson awkwardly landed after a pull-up midrange jump shot and needed to be escorted off the floor into the locker room.

Jalen Brunson had to be helped back to the locker room after this play. Hope he is ok.

pic.twitter.com/04Gjh0O25i

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) March 4, 2024

His injury compounded issues for a Knicks team already short its starting front court.

New York entered Sunday’s matchup against the Cleveland Cavaliers without Julius Randle (right shoulder dislocation), OG Anunoby (right elbow surgery) and Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery).

Randle and Anunoby have been out of the rotation since New York’s Jan. 27 victory over the Miami Heat.

The Knicks lost eight of their last 11 games leading up to Brunson’s injury against the Cavaliers.

Brunson earned his first career NBA All-Star nod and is averaging 27.7 points per game for the Knicks this season.

This is a developing story.

Hartenstein played just 20 minutes in the Knicks’ 11-point loss to the Golden State Warriors on Thursday.

He skipped Tuesday’s second leg of a back-to-back — the blowout loss to the New Orleans Pelicans — played 27 minutes against the Detroit Pistons, 24 minutes against the Boston Celtics and 11 minutes in the first game out of the All-Star break against the Philadelphia 76ers.

For reference, Hartenstein played 30 or more minutes in 16 of the 19 games between Dec. 15 and Jan. 18.

“I’m still just catching rhythm,” he said after the Warriors game. “I think that’s the biggest thing.”

The minutes restriction came after Hartenstein’s second bout with what the team has called left Achilles tendinopathy. He has missed six games since Jan. 22 with soreness and tightness in his left Achilles and said he has to ramp up to get his body in position to play consistently high minutes at the end of the season.

“I’m more comfortable and just catching my rhythm, I think that’s the biggest thing,” said Hartenstein. “Tonight I felt like some stuff was a little slow, but that will all come with time, so that’s nothing I’m worried about right now.”

Hartenstein said he would have sat out “a couple more weeks” had his team not been in a dogfight in the Eastern Conference standings, but only a game-and-a-half separate No.4 New York from the No. 8 Indiana Pacers.

If the Knicks do not finish the regular season sixth or better, they will have to compete in the sudden-death Play-In Tournament to retain their status as a playoff team.

“There’s urgency every single day. I feel like that was the main thing of me wanting to come back. Just to make sure I’m here for my team,” said Hartenstein. “I probably could’ve sat out a couple more weeks. But to me, I think we found a perfect medium where we’re ramping it up at a good time.”

Hartenstein said he felt some soreness in his Achilles after playing 20 minutes against the Warriors on Thursday.

“But that’s why you ramp it up because it will get better and better,” he said. “That’s where we’re at. We don’t want to spike it up too much at this point. We have a good program in place. It’ll get better. That’s the good thing about it.”

Hartenstein’s minutes will be important even if Mitchell Robinson is able to return to the rotation after undergoing December ankle surgery.

Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau has deployed dual bigs in the absence of both Robinson and Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder) with Hartenstein starting alongside versatile forward Precious Achiuwa.

The two-big lineup helps the Knicks stay formidable on the glass but doesn’t quite provide the spacing needed to open up the floor.

Hartenstein is one-of-three from downtown on the season and hasn’t attempted a three since Nov. 13. Achiuwa is shooting 25% from three this season but has missed each of his last seven attempts from behind the arc.

And as a result, opposing defenses don’t respect Hartenstein or Achiuwa as three-point threats and thus sag off of them to help on others. This clogs the lane and makes it more difficult for players like Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo to drive to the lane.

Brunson, the leader he is, said it’s on him to play better when spacing is limited.

“Not turn the ball over. Stay confident within myself and not worry about whatever else is happening,” he said after the loss to the Warriors. “Just focus on whatever I can do to help the team win. That’s my main priority, and I didn’t do that tonight.”

Thibodeau said Achiuwa and Hartenstein need to do a better job helping their shooters get open looks.

“We didn’t make shots tonight. So that was the problem to me, they were sagging off them, so there’s things that we can do, in terms of dribble handoff type stuff,” he said. “Because if you’re sagging, the quick dribble handoffs can create an open shot in the pocket for you. So that’s what we have to lock into more.

“I thought the times that we did that, when we played on the pocket, we created good shots for each other. And that’s what we have to continue to do. The one advantage that we have is the rebounding component is key, because when you’re playing big, that’s what you get. That’s where your advantage is, the offensive rebounding, but we have to force the defense to collapse.”

Hartenstein said he’ll be better across the board when his body begins to feel like normal.

“Normally I’m really good in those situations but today wasn’t great,” he said. “It comes with time. I think I just need to get more patience. I think most of my stuff is a step slow in most of the stuff I’m doing right now.”

STANDINGS CHECK

The Knicks enter Sunday’s matchup against the No. 2 Cleveland Cavaliers with sole ownership of the Eastern Conference’s No. 4 seed.

Here’s how the standings look below the Knicks in the East as of Saturday afternoon:

• No. 5 Philadelphia 76ers (-0.5)
• No. 6 Orlando Magic (-1.0)
• No. 7 Miami Heat (-1.5)
• No. 8 Indiana Pacers (-1.5)

The 76ers also play the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday, and the Orlando Magic play a nine-win Detroit Pistons team.

If the Knicks lose to the Cavs and both the 76ers and Magic win, the Knicks will fall to sixth in the East.

The Indiana Pacers play the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday, and the Heat play against the Utah Jazz on Saturday.

The Eastern Conference playoff race is heating up, and with Randle and OG Anunoby (right elbow surgery) out of the rotation due to injury, the Knicks are in danger of plummeting down the standings.

Hart is shooting 39.2% from three-point range since the mid-February NBA All-Star Break.

He was shooting just 30.6% from downtown prior to the break and even went on his own Roommates Podcast with Jalen Brunson to declare his jumper “broke.”

Hart said he hit the lab and fixed his struggling three-ball with reps and slight tinkering of his shot.

He said he worked tirelessly through the All-Star break to improve a previously reliable jump shot back to its old form.

“Just continuing to work on it. I think this was the first All-Star [break] that I — normally I let my body rest, All-Star, don’t do anything. This one I was in the gym every day, trying to get back to the basics. Then when I go out there, not think and shoot with confidence. If teams are going to play off of me, I’ve got to be confident to take and make shots.”

Hart said shooting is about repetition and confidence but noted he made some slight adjustments to his shooting form.

“Tried to tweak some stuff, keep the elbow in,” he said. “Try to get the ball off my palm as much as I can.”

Hart shot 51.9% from three-point range after arriving in New York in a mid-season trade last season. The most frustrating part of his shooting skid, he said, was the impact it had on the Knicks offense.

“You do that [miss open shots], you make it a little tougher offensively because you’re not making shots,” he said. “Teams are playing off and it doesn’t give guys like J.B. [Jalen Brunson], Ju [Julius Randle], Te [Donte DiVincenzo], now AB [Alec Burks] and OG [Anunoby], lanes to cut and drive.

“That’s the frustrating thing. Feels more so like you’re letting the team down.”

Head coach Tom Thibodeau said he knew Hart’s jumper would come around because of the amount of time he put into working on his shot.

“He’s put a lot of work. I say it to all our guys,” he said. “I see what you do before practice, in practice then after practice, and as long as you’re working on your shots, if you’re open, I want you to let it go.”

***

Thibodeau said Alec Burks’ struggling shooting numbers don’t paint a full picture.

Instead, Thibodeau points to Burks’ net rating to justify playing the veteran wing impactful minutes despite a faltering jumper.

Burks shot two-of-six from the field for five points in 11 minutes in Thursday’s 11-point loss to the Golden State Warriors.

He is shooting 24-of-66, or 36.3%, from the field and 12-of-37 (32.4%) from downtown through the eight games he’s played since arriving in New York alongside Bojan Bogdanovic as part of the Quentin Grimes trade with the Detroit Pistons.

Thibodeau said he likes the shots Burks is getting in the offense.

“But if you look at his net rating — and again tonight, I probably should have played him more minutes tonight — he’s a plus when he’s on the floor, good things are happening. So just keep working.”

What exactly is Burks doing that doesn’t show up on the box score?

“I think the one thing is it does give you spacing because people know that he can shoot. And that is very good in a pick and roll game,” Thibodeau continued. “And so it gives you a second pick and roll player on the floor. Sometimes we all tend to measure on what a guy shoots, but there’s other things that he’s bringing and just being on the floor to create space. Sometimes that’s what you need is the space.

“When you get that, now Jalen can drive to the basket or Deuce can drive to the basket. So that’s why we liked him. We know he’s gonna shoot threes at a pretty high clip. And so I think if you sometimes if you tend to look at it in a game or two, you’re not gonna get the true picture. And we just talked about that like [Stephen] Curry just went through a stretch where he wasn’t making, but he’s arguably the best shooter ever. It’s part of the game.

“So you deal with missed shots as long as you’re working on your shot, you live with that.”

Burks was plus-six against the Warriors on Thursday.

***

Isaiah Hartenstein said he returned early from a sore left Achilles to help a depleted Knicks team stay afloat in its fight to retain playoff standing.

“I probably could’ve sat out a couple more weeks,” he said. “But to me, I think we found a perfect medium where we’re ramping it up at a good time. Just want to be here for the team.”

Hartenstein has been on a minutes restriction ever since missing a second string of games due to left Achilles tendinopathy.

He did not play in Tuesday’s second leg of a back-to-back against the New Orleans Pelicans and logged just 20 minutes on Thursday against the Warriors as part of a ramp-up process.

“I feel it [the Achilles] now a little bit,” he said after the game on Thursday. “But that’s why you ramp it up because it will get better and better. That’s where we’re at. We don’t want to spike it up too much at this point. We have a good program in place. It’ll get better. That’s the good thing about it.”

Until the Knicks get their starting forwards back from injury, they’ll be in a dogfight to retain their status as an outright playoff team.

Thursday night’s 110-99 loss to the Golden State Warriors did not help New York’s cause.

The Knicks have now lost eight of their last 11 games.

The skid directly coincides with the moment Julius Randle dislocated his right shoulder at the end of the Knicks’ blowout victory over the Miami Heat.

That was the last day OG Anunoby took the floor in orange and blue before discovering he needed surgery to remove a loose bone fragment from his right, shooting elbow.

The good news is Anunoby is on track to return in March, though it’s unclear when Randle will be comfortable enough to play with a shoulder potentially in need of offseason surgery.

The bad news, unfortunately, is Anunoby’s return won’t be fast enough to save the Knicks from plummeting down the Eastern Conference standings.

Plummeting is on the table. The Knicks are in a tailspin outside of their own control.

Thursday’s loss to the Warriors dropped the Knicks to just a 12-23 record against teams with winning records.

And here’s the kicker: Seven of the Knicks’ next nine opponents fit the description as above-.500 teams. The stretch culminates with a four-game West Coast road trip, including three games against championship contenders looming on the docket — at Sacramento, at Golden State, then at Denver, home to the reigning NBA champion Nuggets.

“I’m not sure what you all expect or what you all think. We are playing as best as we can with the bodies that we have,” said Josh Hart, who is filling in for Anunoby as the starting small forward. “We have guys like OG, Ju, [Mitchell Robinson], been out for a long time.

“We’re playing our asses off. It’s not like we’re just sitting there and crying about injuries and laying down. Nah, we’re grinding. We’re pushing ourselves. And once we get guys back we’re good.”

This extended skid comes at an inopportune moment for a Knicks team fighting to stay out of the Play-In Tournament.

The Eastern Conference playoff picture includes the Boston Celtics as the No. 1 seed, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks jockeying for second and third, then five teams within arm’s reach of one another competing for seeds Nos. 4-6.

The Knicks are still the No. 4 seed after Thursday’s loss to the Warriors, but they are only one game ahead of four teams tied for fifth place: Miami, Philadelphia, Indiana and Orlando.

Every win is critical. Every loss is worth twice its weight in the standings.

The standings, however, weren’t an issue when the Knicks were healthy.

The Knicks went 12-2 before Randle and Anunoby went down and 16-3 before additional injuries became insurmountable.

The organization is optimistic Anunoby and Randle will return with enough games to ramp themselves up into the playoffs.

The second half of the month of March could see both starters return to the floor, though Randle’s situation with a dislocated shoulder is trickier than Anunoby, who resumed on-court activities and is able to dribble, pass and shoot as of Thursday.

It’s unfair to have deep playoff expectations for a Knicks team missing its entire starting front court.

“I didn’t see anybody talking about the way we were playing before [the injuries] — nine [wins]  in a row, 10 in a row, 15 out of 16. Take four starters, six rotation guys out of any lineup in the league they’re going to struggle,” said Hart. “I don’t care if they’re Boston with the best record or Detroit or Washington with the worst record. If you take that many guys out at the same time you’re going to struggle. That’s the reality of it.

“Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll get guys back. We’re grinding. We’re pushing ourselves as much as we can. Once those guys are back the benefit of it is we get a fresh OG, a fresh Ju, hopefully a fresh Mitch, to make a run.”

The Knicks still have to fight to stay out of the sudden-death Play-In Tournament. It won’t be an easy battle without their key players.

The Magic have the easiest remaining schedule among all 30 NBA teams. The Heat have the fifth-easiest and the Sixers own the seventh-lightest schedule.

The Knicks stand at 15 — not too easy, not too difficult, until you account for their lack of healthy starters.

Even if Jalen Brunson continues to play at an All-Star level, it’s hard for the Knicks to beat quality opponents without their usual first string.

“Yeah I give our guys a lot of credit. They’ve been fighting all year,” said head coach Tom Thibodeau. “We’ve been shorthanded most of the year. So just keep fighting. Don’t look ahead, just look at what’s in front of us today. Tomorrow we’ll worry about tomorrow. Put each and everything you have into every day.”

The day will come, of course, when the Randle, Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson return to the fold. The Knicks are biding time until the day arrives.

“We’re confident,” said Isaiah Hartenstein. “We had a little stretch even after that when we were playing good. Then after that we had more injuries and then a whole bunch of guys out. And certain games where it was close at the end. Houston [lost on an incorrect foul call] was close. Then this last stretch has been a little tougher. But again, we have enough guys here. We’re confident in that until everyone comes back.”

Until then, it’s all hands on deck and everyone giving everything they have to help keep the ship afloat.

For Hart, it meant 47 minutes and 10 seconds in an 11-point loss to the Warriors.

For Hartenstein, it’s playing through an Achilles injury he believes he could have used more time resting before taking the floor again.

“There’s urgency. There’s urgency every single day,” he said. “I feel like that was the main thing of me wanting to come back. Just to make sure I’m here for my team.

“I probably could’ve sat out a couple more weeks. But to me, I think we found a perfect medium where we’re ramping it up at a good time. Just want to be here for the team.”

After undergoing a minor procedure on his right elbow, starting forward OG Anunoby has been cleared to resume on-court activities, head coach Tom Thibodeau said on Thursday.

“He can shoot, dribble, pass,” Thibodeau said ahead of tipoff against the Golden State Warriors. “No contact yet. But [he’s on to] the next step and we’ll start that tomorrow.

Anunoby last played in the Knicks’ Jan. 27 victory over the Miami Heat. He was initially listed as out the following game due to elbow inflammation, but over the course of several days, his injury was upgraded to right elbow bone spur irritation.

The Knicks later announced he underwent a minor procedure to remove a loose bone fragment from his elbow.

Thibodeau declined to get into specifics about reports suggesting Anunoby has a middle of March target date to return to the floor.

“It’s premature,” he said. “He just cleared this next step. So all basketball activity aside from the contact will be the next thing. And then once that happens, he’ll be back.”

Thibodeau said Anunoby did some work Thursday morning. Josh Hart, who has replaced the injured Anunoby in the starting lineup, was not a spectator for Anunoby’s session.

Hart, however, is averaging just under 40 minutes per game since he was thrust into the starting forward spot.

“He’s taking his sweet-ass time, I’ll tell you that,” Hart joked on Thursday. “I’m playing 40 [minutes]. That’s the difference, so hopefully he’ll hurry his ass up.”

Anunoby, of course, is integral to the Knicks’ odds at a deeper playoff run than last season’s second-round appearance.

The Knicks traded Immanuel Quickley, R.J. Barrett and a second-round pick to the Toronto Raptors in the deal that landed Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa in New York. They immediately won 12 of the first 14 games they played after the deal before both Anunoby and Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder) left the rotation in the victory over the Heat.

The 12-2 record after the trade ranked first in the NBA, and the Knicks also led the league in defensive rating, allowing just 104.1 points per 100 possessions after inserting Anunoby into the starting lineup.

The Knicks own the fifth-worst defensive rating since Anunoby’s injury. Isaiah Hartenstein has also missed five games with left Achilles soreness, with a depleted Knicks team attempting to hold the fort down until the key starters return to the rotation.

“It’s a combination,” Thibodeau said of the team’s defensive woes without Anunoby. “Obviously it’s [OG], but also coinciding with that is Isaiah going out. So some of our rim protection is gone. But we still have to find a way to get it done. Other guys, get in there and get it done.”

The Knicks miss Anunoby’s spacing offensively, too.

He scored 15 or more points in seven of the 10 games leading into his injury, including 23 points in a win over Portland and 26 points in the victory over the defending champion Denver Nuggets.

“He’s someone who can make the game easy. Offensively he lets the game come to him, gets stuff in rhythm, in the flow of the offense,” said Hart. “Defensively, obviously he’s — you know — a huge piece in terms of guarding the other team’s best players, point of attack, those kinds of things.

“So not having that makes things harder defensively and offensively, but whenever he stops f–king around and on vacation, it’ll be better.”

While Thibodeau is upbeat about the progress his starting forward has made, there is no definitive timetable yet for Anunoby’s return.

“I think all that stuff [reports on his injury timeline] is speculation. It’s when he’s ready to play,” he said. “The good thing was him getting cleared today. Now you go into the next phase. He’ll be checked by our medical people daily and then we go from there. This next step is the important one. Once the contact is added, then that’s when he’ll be ready to go.

STILL NOTHING ON MITCH

Mitchell Robinson has not yet progressed to running or jumping after his December surgery on his left ankle.

Robinson is out of the walking boot and has been cleared for on-court activities, but he isn’t yet sprinting or leaping, the two activities defining his production at the center spot.

“The normal stuff. He’s following the protocol,” Thibodeau said. “He’s making really good progress. He’s no longer in a boot. He’s shooting, doing all that type of stuff. He hasn’t been cleared for contact yet.”

To overturn the Feb. 12 defeat, the Knicks needed to prove a “misapplication of the official playing rules” rather than a judgment error by the referees.

“Because the foul call at issue reflected an error in judgment, New York did not demonstrate a misapplication of the playing rules, and the extraordinary remedy of upholding a game protest was not warranted,” the NBA said.

The Knicks filed a protest after a leaping Brunson was called for a foul as the Rockets’ Aaron Holiday unleashed a deep, one-handed desperation heave late in regulation in a 103-103 game in Houston.

With 0.3 on the clock, Holiday made two free throws to clinch a 105-103 victory in a game that otherwise would have gone to overtime.

“In live action it was felt that the lower body contact was illegal contact,” crew chief Ed Malloy said in the subsequent postgame pool report. “After seeing it during postgame review, the offensive player was able to return to a normal playing position on the floor. The contact which occurred after the release of the ball therefore is incidental and marginal to the shot attempt and should not have been called.”

With Wednesday’s denial, the outcome remains a hard-luck loss for a banged-up Knicks team that’s dropped six of its last eight games, all of which came without the injured Julius Randle or OG Anunoby in the lineup.

The NBA has only upheld six protests, most recently in 2007.

The Knicks can take some solace in knowing they got away with a 113-111 victory Monday over the NBA-worst Detroit Pistons in which the refs said they missed a late loose-ball foul on New York’s Donte DiVincenzo. The officials admitted afterward they should have called a foul with Detroit up 111-110, seconds before the Knicks’ Josh Hart made a game-winning lay-up.