Let’s be blunt about this: the Knicks lose this game last year. Let’s go a bit farther: they would’ve lost the last two games they’ve played. Both games — Monday at Madison Square Garden against Orlando, Wednesday at home against Charlotte — followed the same blueprint of so many failed nights out of last winter, a play in three acts:

1. Knicks play well early against a lesser/undermanned team, take a lead.
2. Knicks allow said lesser/undermanned team back into the game with lapses of concentration and execution.
3. Knicks lose game because they are a mess on both ends of the floor during winning time, especially on offense.

Against the Magic Monday and the Hornets Wednesday, the Knicks dutifully followed the first two plot points. Against Charlotte they led most of the game, and by as many as 10 points early in the fourth quarter. They pumped the brakes too early, fell behind by five with 2:22 left. A year ago, you turn your TV off right there.

This year, there is Jalen Brunson.

“We’re supposed to win game even when we’re not playing our best,” Brunson said. “That’s the sign of a good team.”

If there was any doubt about the value Brunson brought to the Knicks, the last two games — but especially this 134-131 overtime win Wednesday — should rest that case. The Knicks are on a three-game winning streak heading into Friday’s intriguing challenge at Milwaukee — and are 3-1 instead of 1-3 — for one reason and one reason alone.

Brunson plays for them now. Brunson commands the offense down the stretch, he demands the Knicks play the same selfless ball in the final sweaty moments of games as they do in the breezy early ones. More to the point, he delivers.

Tuesday it was 27 points and a career-high 13 assists. It was a monumental 3 to help close that late gap in regulation, then another in OT, plus a technical free throw and an inside basket, along with a gorgeous no-look pass to Mitch Robinson for a key dunk.

“That’s who he is,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “He does whatever the game needs. That’s what he does. They were blitzing him and he made a number of good plays, good reads, he scored when we needed big buckets.”

If this transformation — a genuine point guard walking into a lineup and turning a team upside down — seems familiar, it should. Twenty-one years ago, the first weeks of Jason Kidd’s time with the Nets offered a similar transfiguration: a lost team receiving leadership and high-end production thanks to professional play at the most essential position.

Forget what Kidd did over the long haul his first two years in Jersey, the two Finals he led the Nets to. The most amazing part of that time was early on, the first few games at old Continental Airlines Arena, the Nets playing in front of friends and family every night, only 5,000 or 6,000 in the house. It was like a splendid secret only a few people recognized at first, Kidd instantly rejiggering the Nets into the most fun show in the league.

The Knicks aren’t exactly the Warriors just yet — or the 2001-02 Nets, for that matter — but Brunson’s early impact has been similar. What used to be ugly — the Knicks’ iso-heavy offense — is now beautiful. What used to be a disjointed mess — the end of games — is now a reason to believe.

“We kept talking to each other: ‘Stay together, stay poised,’ and we kept finding plays to make at the end of the game,” Brunson said. “It was a full-team effort for sure.”

Where once it was Kidd feeding Kerry Kittles, feeding Kenyon Martin, feeding Keith Van Horn, now it is Brunson feeding Julius Randle, feeding RJ Barrett, feeding Evan Fournier — and feeding himself, too. It is four games. It is a laughably small sample size. There is an enormity of a season still ahead. All true.

So is this: The Knicks are a different team. There is a different vibe. There is even a different sound now at the Garden, where Wednesday a full house of 19,812 held its breath across the final harrowing minutes of regulation and overtime, then exploded in celebration. The Garden isn’t that hard a room to please.

“You’ve got to win ugly sometimes,” Brunson said, laughing.

“Find a way to win,” Thibodeau said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Monday the Knicks did. Wednesday they did. A year ago? Alarm bells would already be sounding. No need for them now. Not with Brunson on the case.