Knicks vow they’re not looking past Nets in season finale

Nothing was more important than the Nets.

Shortly after the first-round playoff matchup with the Pistons was set, the Knicks had other things on their minds, having matched their worst losing streak of the season.

It began Tuesday, when the Knicks fumbled an opportunity to knock off the reigning champs, losing their lead to the Celtics in the final seconds of regulation and the game in overtime.

Two days later, the Knicks blew a 13-point second-half lead in Detroit.

On Friday, the Knicks coughed up a 23-point lead to the Cavaliers.

So what if Sunday’s regular-season finale in Brooklyn has no impact on the playoff seeding? So what if it comes against one of the league’s worst teams?

The Knicks are in no position to treat any minutes as meaningless.

“We’ll talk about [the playoffs] once all 82 games are played,” Jalen Brunson said after Friday’s loss. “We gotta go into this next game with the right mentality, the right mindset and have a short-term memory. You can’t let things like this linger on. It’s important to have a short-term memory right now and just continue to move forward. I know it’s tough. I know it sounds like it’s B.S., but it’s literally what we have to do right now in order for us to be better.

“We got one more game to go, and then we can talk about all that.”

After facing the top two teams in the Eastern Conference and their upcoming playoff opponent, the Knicks (50-31) have the right matchup to rediscover their confidence.

The Nets (26-55) have lost all three meetings with the Knicks this season and have gone 5-20 since Feb. 22, regularly running out a youthful, inexperienced lineup that only Brooklyn diehards could accurately identify.

The Knicks have gone 35-8 against teams with a losing record this season. This will be their last chance for another layup — and their 51st win of the season, which would mark the most by the franchise in a dozen years — before Game 1 against the Pistons next weekend at Madison Square Garden.

“We’ve got to find what makes this team successful and work on that,” Josh Hart said. “Obviously, playoff basketball is a different level. The physicality picks up. The intensity picks up. So we gotta make sure we spend this week preparing physically, but, more importantly, mentally.

“We’re not playing close to our best basketball. I think this week, we’ll look at situations and how to get us to our best basketball. … We’ll figure that out. But we gotta go out there and end the season right against Brooklyn and then prepare mentally and physically.”

In preparation for the postseason, Tom Thibodeau has relaxed his all-out mentality, giving rest to Hart, OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson on Thursday, before sitting Karl-Anthony Towns on Friday.

The Knicks coach wouldn’t reveal his lineup plan against the Nets.

“We need to get better as a team. We need to get rhythm,” Thibodeau said Friday. “That’s always the question that everyone has. It’s rest vs. rhythm. I think each team has to make the decision for what’s best for their team. And in our case, we’re relying on the medical. If a guy needs time right now, he gets it … [but] keep fighting to run through the finish line.”

The Pistons can wait.

“We’ll get there when we get there,” Thibodeau said. “We still got one more game.”