Knicks' .500 record on four-game West Coast trip not half-bad

The Knicks seemed relieved, pleased with themselves — if exhausted — after finishing off their comeback win over Portland on Tuesday night. It allowed them to complete their   four-game West Coast trip with a 2-2 record and return home in fifth place in the Eastern Conference.

It was survival, playing all but 19:25 of the last six games without Jalen Brunson, and when it was over, they could exhale. They flew home Wednesday and rested Thursday in preparing for a return to practice Friday and the final 11 games of the regular season.

“Yeah, it’s been interesting,”  coach Tom Thibodeau said in Portland on Tuesday. “This segment of games when you look at it, we knew it would be challenging because we really started in Miami. And so, you’re in the Southeast, you go to Boston, then you have a pit stop for one game in New York and then you head out to Sacramento, so you’re zigzagging across the country. Then L.A. and then the final game here. That’s a lot of miles. Overall, very pleased. But there’s still a long way to go and there’s obviously a lot of things that we have to correct.”

“It was huge,” Josh Hart said of winning the last two games on the road trip to earn the split. “Because obviously, when you don’t have one of your best players, sometimes teams just crumble or they go on a little losing streak. We gave away one to Charlotte and then we had a tough two to begin the road trip. So to finish the road trip .500 and go back home, we’ll take it. I think we have like three days off until our next game, so get ready for Denver and keep it moving.”

The Knicks have a 1 1/2-game lead over the sixth-place Nets and a three-game advantage over seventh-place Miami. While the Knicks were off Thursday, the Nets started a four-game stretch, all at home, with a loss against Sacramento (the second-place team in the Western Conference). Their next three games are against Western Conference front-runner Denver and two games against Cleveland, seeded fourth in the Eastern Conference.

The Knicks have the eighth-easiest remaining schedule, with six of the 11 games at home and only five of the games against teams currently in playoff or play-in position.

“I think this team was trending upward when I got here,” said Hart, who has seen the team go 11-3 since he joined the lineup. “And I was able to kind of just fit right in and continue to help this team grow. I think that’s the biggest thing. It feels great that we’re able to win, and I’m in a new position right now where I’m sitting here and we’re really playing for something. I haven’t really been in this position before in my career. So that’s just making myself even more hungry, and the rest of the guys in the locker room [too].”

For Hart, this stretch and being part of a team bound for the postseason is special. In his first five seasons, he not only never got to the playoffs but never  was part of a team with a winning record in stops with the Lakers, Pelicans and Trail Blazers.

The Knicks' win in Portland improved their record to 41-30, assuring the team of at least a .500 season.

“Hopefully this year,” Hart said of the postseason chase. “It’s been great. So far we have [41] wins with [11] more games to go. Hopefully keep it going and see where it gets us.”

Notes & quotes: Brunson, who sat out the last three games of the trip with a sore left foot after playing the first half in Sacramento, could join the team in practice Friday and be back for Saturday’s game against Denver . . . Knicks center Mitchell Robinson posted — and deleted — a message on Snapchat after the Portland win that read, “tired (. . . ) of just being out there for cardio fam, like I want to play basketball to (sic) really just wasting my time and energy.” Robinson took two shots in 21 minutes Tuesday.

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.