CLEVELAND — It wasn’t exactly John Stockton to Karl Malone, but the new wrinkle the Knicks installed to their pick-and-roll sets in Game 4 certainly had the desired effect.

Rather than use centers Mitchell Robinson or Isaiah Hartenstein to be the primary screeners for point guard Jalen Brunson in the half-court offense, the Knicks mostly used wings RJ Barrett and Josh Hart in those roles.

The aim was to keep defensive-minded Cavaliers bigs Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen out of those actions and pinned to the baseline.

According to The Ringer, using numbers posted by the sports tracking website Second Spectrum, the Knicks used Robinson, Hartenstein and Julius Randle as the intended screener for Brunson an average of 32.1 times per game during the regular season, yet that figure was down to 17.4 times per game in building a 3-1 lead entering Game 5 Wednesday night at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

That somewhat traditional half-court setup often leads to, say, a pull-up jumper or floater by Brunson, a lob pass for a dunk by Robinson or a rolling drive to the hoop by Randle. In other words, standard NBA stuff.

By contrast, wing players Hart, Barrett and Immanuel Quickley had been used as screeners for Brunson an average of 4.3 times per game during the 82-game slate and a whopping 17.3 times per game — essentially four times as often — in the playoffs against the Cavaliers.

Barrett has seen the biggest change, screening for Brunson 5.5 times per game in the four playoff contests, as opposed to around once per game during the regular season.

“I think that a lot of times they were doubling Jalen, so I was able to get the ball and kind of make the play,” Barrett said. “That drive for the dunk or the layups that I had, [Robinson is] in the middle of the paint and he, like, seals them off for a second, so I’ve got a second to go.”

Barrett set picks for Brunson on four consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter of Game 4, and the Knicks came away with seven points.

This strategy seemed to unlock something and help Barrett get back to aggressively attacking the rim, as well as aiding Brunson’s turnaround from a shaky Game 2 performance, the Knicks’ lone loss of the series.

After two rocky offensive showings in the first two games of the series here, Barrett scored 19 points on 8-for-12 shooting in Game 3 and finished Game 4 with 26 points and 13 free-throw attempts, both career highs for a postseason game.

“Seeing how RJ handles everything, I probably sound like a broken record, how many times I‘ve said, you can never tell with his demeanor whether he’s too high or too low, upset or happy, at least when he’s on the court,” Brunson said Tuesday. “He’s always level-headed, knowing it’s one possession at a time, whether it’s good or bad, having a short-term memory. He’s always controlled that. I haven’t really seen him [deviate] form that path. He’s been really good at that.”

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Thibodeau offered a perfect deadpan response when asked if he had watched his former Bulls star Jimmy Butler’s 56-point masterpiece Monday night to put the No. 8 Heat up 3-1 over the top-seeded Bucks in their first-round series.

“Who?” Thibodeau said with a wry smile.

Of course, the Knicks cannot even begin to think about a potential second-round meeting with their long-ago rivals, the Heat, in the second round. Even if the minds of their fans have begun to wander and wonder, even slightly.

Only 13 teams out of 270 in NBA history had overcome a 3-1 deficit entering this year. But with one playoff series win in more than two decades, the Knicks certainly can’t be in the counting-chickens-before-they-hatch business.

Nor can the Heat, especially with two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the 2021 NBA champs on the other side.

Still, those of us old enough to vividly remember the Knicks and the Heat squaring off in postseason play for four consecutive years from 1997-2000 — each side advanced twice — and again in 2012 can’t help but envision a return engagement, all these years later.

Thibodeau was a member of Jeff Van Gundy’s coaching staff in those years, and Knicks assistant coach Rick Brunson was a player on a couple of those teams.

That’s all for another day, though, if that day even comes.

“Again, keep the focus exactly where it needs to be,” Thibodeau said Tuesday. “We can’t be worried about what happened Sunday or anything else. You just got to focus on, ‘OK, it takes four games to win a series, you know?’ Win the fourth game, and that’s our next game. So be ready. Know what we have to do. We’re on the road, play hard play smart, play together.

“You’re challenged every day. And so, accept that challenge, prepare yourself for that challenge, and then know that at the end, it doesn’t stop — and that’s the beauty of the league. If you love competition, that’s what you look forward to. It should bring the best out of you. If you’re doing the right things, each and every day, you’re going to enjoy this. It’s competition at its best.”

Brunson said his father has told him “a little bit” about that old rivalry, but reiterated that “we’re only focused on Game 5 right now.”

Still, it’s not as if he avoided watching Monday’s Bucks-Heat tilt, either.

“Playoffs are the best time of year,” Brunson said. “When you get to watch playoff games as good as that, and watch performances like that [by Butler], it’s really special. That was a great game, great finish.”

Asked a follow-up about Butler’s performance, Thibodeau added, “It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen him do that. He’s an unbelievable talent. Great game, went back and forth. Both teams are loaded. … If I’ve had a relationship with you, I want all those guys to do well, except when we play him. I know what he’s trying to do. And I know what we’re trying to do.”

Randle publicly said what you would have expected him to say Tuesday in his first public comments since he sat out the entire fourth quarter of Sunday’s Game 4 win at the Garden.

That is, the obligatory comments about only wanting to win and insisting he’s “fine” health-wise despite missing time late in the regular season due to a sprained ankle and taking a hard fall at the end of Game 2 following a flagrant foul by Allen.

Brunson, unsurprisingly, added that he expects a bounce-back showing from his All-Star teammate, who shot 24 percent from the floor (6-for-25) and totaled 18 points in the Knicks’ two home victories.

“When Julius is at his best, he’s very difficult to stop. I’m really not too worried about him,” Brunson said. “The way he comes in every day, works on his stuff, gets his routine in, gets his mind ready to go, just has a next-day’s mentality for him, I’m not really too worried about him at all. I just know he’s going to come back and just be better.”