DALLAS — No Anthony Davis, no Kyrie Irving, no Cooper Flagg.

Knicks by 80.

That’s how a traditional basketball fan might have viewed Wednesday’s late-night matchup: a loaded, veteran Knicks team with championship aspirations facing the four-win Dallas Mavericks — a franchise currently operating somewhere between a rebuild, an identity crisis and a crime scene.

Yes, those Mavericks.

The same Mavericks who:

Let Jalen Brunson walk in 2022 (New York thanks you for your service),

Talked themselves into trading Luka Dončić to the Lakers (Los Angeles thanks you for your service),

And fired general manager Nico Harrison only after he lit every asset on fire.

Those hopeless, some say cursed, Mavericks gave the Knicks all they could handle. And in a hideous, grind-it-out performance at th

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