You’re allowed to enjoy re-energized Knicks even if there is more roster work to do

It’s OK to sit back and enjoy what you’re seeing right now, you know. It’s all right to do what no less an authority than Pat Riley has done for years, urging his players to live in “the precious present,” a term he borrowed from author Spencer Johnson, a phrase that really should be the sacred mantra of Knicks fans right now.

Tomorrow is for tomorrow. May and June are for May and June. The fact that the Knicks are still a little short when you line them up against the beasts of the East is still real life, no matter how glorious they looked across wide swatches of Tuesday night’s 112-84 evisceration of the Blazers before 19,812 occasionally delirious fans at Madison Square Garden. But for now, it’s OK to forget that.

“We were really connected,” said OG Anunoby, who had the Garden chanting his name during a remarkable 29-minute shift in which he scored 23 points, including 4 out of 6 from deep. “Flying around, getting stops, looking out for one another.”

They were. That’s five-for-five now since Leon Rose acquired Anunoby as the centerpiece of a deal that sent RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to Toronto, and the effect has been an eerily similar vibe to the 9-0 stretch the Knicks went on last year when they acquired Josh Hart from Portland.

The ball is moving. The feet are moving. They are now 15-1 against teams with losing records on the season, and the Blazers are a confirmed member of the NBA dregs right now. But two of those five wins since the trade have come against Minnesota and Philadelphia, who have a combined record of 49-22.

It’s all very heady stuff.

And it’s OK to be OK with that.

“We’re striving to be a 48-minute team,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “I thought we had a good rhythm and a we were very aggressive early.”

Because he is who he is, Thibodeau was decidedly salty about the fact that the Blazers outscored the Knicks 23-15 in the fourth quarter, even though he cleared his bench and was giving the walk-ons as much playing time as they’re likely to get all year. That’s Thibs being Thibs, so he will be immune to enjoying this moment of the season for as long as it lasts.

Though even he was willing to concede: “The spirit of the team is very strong right now.”

Look: if you want to be a buzzkill about all of this, you can do so quite easily. The 4,000-pound neon pink elephant embedded in every gym in which the Knicks play is always there: they’re still a player away. They’re still a move away. They’re still outside the room when the conversation turns to genuine contenders.

If what the Knicks are presenting nightly right now might not be good enough to take the Celtics or the Bucks four out of seven in May … well, it’s plenty good enough to energize the Garden for 2 ¹/₂ hours on a rainy night in January.

“We’re playing for each other on both ends of the floor,” said Julius Randle, whose 20 points, seven rebounds and eight assists paced a balanced offense that was easily able to overcome a rare substandard night from Jalen Brunson (12 points, 3-for-11 from the field). “Guys are doing a great job being active. We’re playing good basketball, winning games. I like what we’re doing.”

And It’s OK to be OK with that, too.

“The goal is to be playing our best at the end of the year,” Thibodeau said. “We have to keep doing what we’re doing and get better.”

Maybe getting better will mean that Rose can figure out another acquisition next month at the trade-deadline, though unless some random superstar grows vastly unhappy in the next six weeks it’s hard to identify who that would be. Maybe it means that once the weather turns warmer, there will be a pathway for the familiar old skepticism to seep back into the picture. That’ll be fair.

But so is this: it’s OK to like what you’re watching. It’s OK to look forward to what should be a fun matchup with Luka, Kyrie and the Mavericks Thursday. Somehow this is the 25th anniversary of the Knicks’ most recent trip to the Finals, and there have been so many awful, empty games across the almost 9,000 days and nights since then. It’s OK to suspend the eternal expectation of a falling sky, for now. It’s OK to be having fun right now.

It’s OK to be OK with all of that.