Shortly after his Knicks responded to a sobering 25-point loss to the Thunder with a 34-point drubbing of the Bucks, Brunson offered a little perspective.

“I don’t really want to have a lot of bounce-back days,” Brunson said after Sunday’s 140-106 win at Madison Square Garden. “I just want to be able to continue to get better every single day and continue to be consistent.”

Indeed, the Knicks have been a particularly high-variance team this season.

They are 0-5 against the Cavaliers, Thunder, Celtics and Rockets — the only four teams with better win percentages than them to begin play Monday — compared to 26-9 against everyone else.

They followed their nine-game win streak from Dec. 15 to Jan. 1 with losses in four of their next five games, including three consecutively.

Going into Monday night’s home game against the Pistons, the Knicks were 4-4 in their last eight games, with all but one of those scores decided by double digits.

“The season, you’re gonna go through a lot of different things, and you have to be able to navigate through everything,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said during Monday’s pregame press conference.

“You want your focus to be on daily improvement, so if some days you fall short, that next day you have to come back with more determination to get things right. It’s a long season, and the whole idea is to keep working each and every day with the thought in mind that you want to be playing your best at the end of the year.”

That won’t come easily, as the Knicks entered Monday with the league’s hardest remaining schedule in terms of opponent win percentage (.523), according to Tankathon. Their final 42 games included three against the NBA-best Cavaliers and three against the defending champion Celtics.

Here are areas where the Knicks can improve:

Reliance on Starters

No team leans more heavily on its starters than the Knicks.

Not even close.

The lineup of Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns had played a whopping 666 minutes together entering Monday’s game.

No other five-player lineup across the entire NBA had played more than 430 minutes together — and only two five-player lineups had played together for even half of the minutes the Knicks’ starters had.

What’s more?

Brunson, Hart, Bridges and Anunoby had played 823 minutes together — again, the most among all four-player lineups in the NBA.

In fact, all five of the NBA’s top four-player lineups in terms of minutes played all belonged to the Knicks, with each featuring a different combination of their starters.

As the most-played three-man lineups? The top seven belonged to the Knicks! Brunson, Bridges and Anunoby had played an incredible 1,042 minutes together to lead the NBA.

No other team had used three players for more than 830 minutes together.

The Knicks entered Monday getting an average of 96.9 points per game from their starters, which led the NBA. That was the driving force in their 26-14 start to the season.

But it also risks burnout.

During their recent slump, the Knicks were outscored 37-19 in the fourth quarter of a loss in Oklahoma City, and 38-17 in the third quarter of a loss in Chicago the following night.

Even in Sunday’s victory, the Knicks used Bridges for 37 minutes, Towns for 36 and Hart for 35 — and that was a game they won by more than 30 points.

Bench Production

This point goes hand in hand with the prior one. The Knicks’ reliance on their starters stems largely from a lack of bench depth.

That depth took a hit with the Knick’s late-offseason trade that sent Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to Minnesota for Towns. Acquiring Towns — the NBA’s Player of the Month for December — has been a resounding success so far, but because it happened so close to the start of the season, the Knicks did not have much time to replenish their bench.

The continued absence of center Mitchell Robinson, who is rehabbing from May ankle surgery, has also hurt. Thibodeau said Monday that Robinson remains on track to be cleared to practice this month, and that sprinting would be his “next step.”

Precious Achiuwa, Landry Shamet and Miles “Deuce” McBride have also missed stretches with injuries, but even with all three healthy now, the bench production remains down.

Entering Monday, the Knicks ranked dead last in the NBA in bench scoring (20.4) and rebounding (9.9) while getting the fewest minutes from their reserves.

Cameron Payne’s 18 points off the bench — including 13 in the second quarter — helped the Knicks pull away in Sunday’s win.

But that wasn’t enough for the Knicks to snap a streak of 21 consecutive games in which their bench was outscored — a stretch dating back to Dec. 1.

Regain Shooting Numbers

Perhaps the most glaring culprit in the Knicks’ recent slide were their brutal shooting numbers.

During that stretch of four losses in five games, the Knicks shot below 30% from 3-point range in each of the defeats — including 12.9% (4-for-31) in Friday’s 126-101 loss to the Thunder at the Garden.

Anunoby began Monday shooting under 32% from 3-point range since the start of December and was just 1-of-10 in his previous two games.

The Knicks went into the game against the Pistons ranked seventh in the NBA in 3-point percentage (37.5%) and third in field-goal percentage (49.5%) for the season.

“We haven’t shot it well over the last five, but over the course of the season, we’ve shot it extremely well,” Thibodeau said. “Sometimes you can jump to conclusions. As most analytical people would say, it’s too small of a sample size.”

Sasaki’s camp informed the Yankees that the Japanese phenom will not be signing with them, YES Network’s Jack Curry reported Monday.

Soon afterward, reports from SNY’s Andy Martino and others stated the Mets were not expected to sign the 23-year-old Sasaki, either.

The Yankees and Mets were among the teams that met with the hard-throwing right-hander, who was posted last month by the Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball.

The San Francisco Giants confirmed Monday that they had been eliminated, while reports said the Texas Rangers were out, too. The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres have been considered the favorites to land Sasaki.

Because Sasaki is not yet 25, he is considered an international amateur and is therefore not eligible for an MLB contract.

Sasaki will be to sign with an MLB team between Wednesday and Jan. 23, with clubs able to bid only from their international bonus pools. Those allotments range from about $5.1 million to $7.5 million.

He is likely to become one of baseball’s best bargains.

Armed with a 100-mph fastball and nasty splitter, Sasaki pitched to a 2.10 ERA and 505 strikeouts in 394.2 innings over four Nippon Professional Baseball seasons. He also stood out as a starter for Team Japan during its run to the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship.

“He’s obviously a tremendous talent,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said last month.

“I saw him pitch in person, but he was coming back from a rehab. I’ve seen, obviously, his videos over the course of time. I’ve seen his scouting reports come across over the course of time. He’s extremely talented, no doubt about it. He has a chance to be one of the world’s great pitchers.”

Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, suggested at last month’s Winter Meetings that his client might benefit from being in a small or mid-level market after having negative experiences with the media in Japan.

But later in December, Wolfe told SNY that market size would not be a factor.

Even without Sasaki, the Yankees boast one of baseball’s better rotations. Last month, they signed Max Fried to an eight-year, $218 million contract, adding the left-handed ace to a starting staff already featuring Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt. Marcus Stroman, who made 29 starts for the Yankees last season, is also under contract but has been the subject of trade rumors.

The Mets, meanwhile, recently re-signed Sean Manaea and added Frankie Montas and Clay Holmes to a rotation also comprising Kodai Senga and David Peterson.

This is the second winter in a row that the Yankees and Mets missed out on a Japanese ace. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was 25 at the time, spurned both a little over a year ago for a record-setting 12-year, $325 million contract with the Dodgers.

The Dodgers also employ another Japanese superstar in Shohei Ohtani, while the Padres have right-hander Yu Darvish, who is considered a mentor to Sasaki.

Brunson now boasts 17 games with at least 40 points as a Knick, tying him with Carmelo Anthony for the third most in franchise history.

Patrick Ewing, who achieved the feat 30 times, and Bernard King, who did so 23 times, are the only players in Knicks history with more 40-point games.

“When you start getting mentioned in those categories, it’s a credit to him,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Brunson. “He’s such a self-made guy, and his talent speaks for itself. You can’t do those things without great talent, but to also have the humility that he has. For him, he just wants to win.”

Sunday’s 140-106 win over the Milwaukee Bucks at Madison Square Garden marked Brunson’s 183rd game with the Knicks. Anthony played 412 games with the Knicks, while Ewing played 1,039 and King played 206.

Ewing was in attendance Sunday for Brunson’s latest 40-point explosion. It was Brunson’s second 40-point game of the season.

Brunson scored 23 points in the first quarter, beginning the game in attack mode as the Knicks sought to bounce back from a sobering 25-point loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Garden two days earlier.

It could have been an even bigger game for Brunson, had he not missed about six minutes in the third quarter after a collision left him with what Thibodeau described as a shoulder stinger.

Brunson scored 12 points after returning from the locker room and said after the game that he felt “great.”

“It was just important for us to go out there and play as best we can,” Brunson, 28, said. “The defense, the way we saw it, I was able to get into the paint and make plays.”

The Knicks had lost four of five games going into Sunday’s. Brunson shot 16-of-26 from the field, including 5-of-10 from 3-point range, and went 7-of-8 on free throws.

Brunson has often operated as a distributor this season, but the point guard has also taken over offensively when the Knicks need him to. He scored 19 points in the first quarter of a Dec. 6 win over the Charlotte Hornets and exploded for 55 points in an overtime victory at Washington on Dec. 28.

“If Jalen scores two points and we win, he’s as happy as if he scores 44 and we win,” Thibodeau said. “That’s the beauty of his game. He’ll adjust to whatever is needed.”

Ewing and King are both Hall of Famers, while Anthony, who ranks 10th in scoring in NBA history, is eligible for induction next year.

This is not the first time Brunson has found himself in elite company. Last year, Brunson became the fourth NBA player with four consecutive 40-point playoff performances, joining King, Michael Jordan and Jerry West.

Brunson is in his third season with the Knicks, whom he signed a four-year, $104 million contract with in 2022 after spending his first four NBA seasons with the Dallas Mavericks.

Over the summer, the Knicks signed Brunson to a four-year, $156.5 million extension and named him the 36th captain in team history.

Brunson began Monday averaging 25.5 points and 7.5 assists per game, both of which led the Knicks, and appears poised for his second consecutive All-Star selection. In the latest All-Star update, Brunson ranked fourth among guards in fan voting.

“He’s going to be an All-Star,” teammate Josh Hart said after Sunday’s win. “I think he should be a starter. I think he should garner that level of respect.”

Two days removed from a 25-point drubbing by the Oklahoma City Thunder that prompted boos from the Madison Square Garden crowd, the Knicks rebounded Sunday with a 140-106 rout of a Milwaukee Bucks team that sat just one spot behind them in the Eastern Conference standings.

It was a bounce-back performance that Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau believes “says a lot” about the character of his players.

“We know it’s a long season,” Thibodeau said. “The makeup of our team is outstanding. We’re not gonna be perfect. We’ll have some games where we fall short, but I know the work they put in and the commitment they made to each other, and that goes a long way over the course of a season. The idea is to play your best basketball at the end.”

The Knicks entered Sunday’s matinee at MSG as losers of four of their last five games. They shot below 30% from 3-point range in all four losses, bottoming out at just 12.9% in Friday’s 126-101 defeat by the red-hot Thunder.

The losses generated renewed attention around the lack of depth on a Knicks team that entered Sunday ranked dead last in the NBA in bench minutes, scoring and rebounding.

Amid that adversity, the Knicks’ stars stepped up.

Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 44 points on 16-of-26 shooting, scoring 23 points in the first quarter to set the tone. He could have had an even bigger game, had a third-quarter collision not left the point guard with what Thibodeau described as a shoulder “stinger.”

Brunson missed about six minutes in that third quarter before checking back in to chants of “MVP” from the home crowd.

“We’ve got to continue it,” Brunson said of the Knicks’ improved performance. “I don’t really want to have a lot of bounce-back days. I just want to be able to continue to get better every single day and continue to be consistent.”

Karl-Anthony Towns added 30 points and 18 rebounds, while Josh Hart contributed 11 points and 11 rebounds.

​​The Knicks made 18 of their 41 attempts from 3-point range (43.9%).

“It starts with Thibs, and then it trickles down to JB, KAT, OG [Anunoby], all them guys,” Hart said. “It shows the character we have. Now, we just have to continue to build off of it. We’ve got a tough team tomorrow [in the Detroit Pistons]; a young team who’s gonna run. Obviously, it’s a back-to-back for us, so we’ve got to make sure we come out with an attention to detail and intensity.”

But it wasn’t only the Knicks starters who came up big.

Cameron Payne scored 18 points off the bench, including 13 in the second quarter that helped the Knicks pull away. He shot 4-of-7 from the field in that quarter, including 3-of-6 from 3-point range.

“Cam comes in, and it was the second opportunities, him being in transition, and him getting a couple of clean looks,” Bucks guard Damian Lillard said. “You see the ball go in, and us being in that scramble situation and out of position, and then another guy gets going, it’s gonna be hard to win a game like that.”

Sunday did not fix all of the Knicks’ problems.

Their rotation remains thin following what’s been a very successful late-offseason trade for Towns, which cost them two key players in forward Julius Randle and guard Donte DiVincenzo.

Rim-protecting center Mitchell Robinson remains out, too, following ankle surgery in May.

The Knicks have the hardest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon, as their 42 upcoming opponents boast a combined winning percentage of .525. That slate includes three more games against the NBA-best Cleveland Cavaliers and another three against the defending champion Boston Celtics.

But the third-seeded Knicks (26-14) improved to 2-0 against the Bucks (20-17), who fell to the No. 5 spot in the East with Sunday’s loss.

The Knicks also beat Milwaukee, 116-94, at the Garden in November, and afterward, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo bemoaned his team’s lack of effort.

“We’re definitely, I believe, a better team than the first time we faced them,” Antetokounmpo said Sunday. “But at the end of the day, they came in, played way harder than us, better than us, and they were able to get a win.”

Asked Sunday about the Knicks’ lack of bench production, the Milwaukee Bucks’ head coach interjected with a line about Tom Thibodeau’s reputation for relying heavily on his starters.

“Has Thibs ever played the bench?” Rivers said with a laugh before his Bucks’ faced Thibodeau’s Knicks at Madison Square Garden. “I’m joking, I’m joking!”

But Rivers’ comment, while made in jest, came during a season in which the Knicks began Sunday ranked dead last among NBA teams in bench scoring (19.9 points per game) and rebounding (9.8 per game) while getting the fewest minutes out of their reserves.

The Knicks entered Sunday’s matinee with a 25-14 record — good for third in the Eastern Conference — thanks largely to an excellent, and healthy, starting five. But the Knicks had lost four of five games, including Friday’s 25-point blowout by the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Garden, highlighting their depth issues.

It’s a situation Rivers can relate to.

He recalled coaching the Los Angeles Clippers a few years ago at the Garden and having to lean on Lou Williams, who had gone out in the city the night before.

“He wanted to come out,” Rivers said. “He said, ‘Coach, I’m not drunk, but I’m hungover.'”

Williams recently told his version of the story, saying on “The Underground Show” that he was still drunk at game time. Rivers, he said, told him he needed to sweat out the alcohol in time for the fourth quarter.

Rivers said Sunday, “The truth is I look down [the bench] and I’m thinking, ‘Lou’s our best option.’ That happens at times. It’s tough, but you’ve got to [have] trust, and then we find out a lot of times you just can’t. When that happens, it does limit you. It limits your choices. You have to play guys bigger minutes.”

“If that’s what [the Knicks] are doing, they’re doing it for a reason,” Rivers said. “One thing we know as coaches: We see everybody every day in practice. We know exactly how guys are playing and who you can trust for the most part.”

The Knicks traded two key players — forward Julius Randle and guard Donte DiVincenzo — less than a month before the season to acquire star center Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Mitchell Robinson continues to rehab from May’s ankle surgery, while Landry Shamet, Precious Achiuwa and Miles “Deuce” McBride have all missed time with injuries for different stretches this season.

Last season, the Knicks ranked 27th in bench scoring (28.4 points per game) and 24th in rebounding (13.9).

The Knicks beat the Bucks, 116-94, at MSG in November in the teams’ first meeting of the season. Rivers said he had not noticed the Knicks doing anything differently during their recent skid.

“The ball’s not going in,” Rivers said. “They also have played some pretty good teams. They played Oklahoma [City] twice. That’s probably not healthy for anybody.”

BIG KAT

In that November win against the Bucks, Towns erupted for 32 points, 11 rebounds and five assists in 32 minutes.

He shot 12-of-20 from the field, including 4-of-8 from 3-point range, and repeatedly blew past the more stationary Brook Lopez — a defensive matchup Rivers described Sunday as a “stupid” one to have assigned.

Towns, 29, entered Sunday averaging 25.2 points per game on 55.2% shooting and a career-high 13.9 rebounds per game.

Asked what Towns is doing differently compared to his nine seasons with Minnesota, Rivers cited multiple areas of improvement.

“He’s always rebounded, but it just seems like his rebounding has been spectacular,” Rivers said. “I don’t think he settles as much here. Before [Anthony Edwards], he basically could take every shot and do whatever he wanted, and now I think he feels a responsibility [to] his teammates now.”

“He has really good teammates,” the coach continued. “He has a team that is serious about going deep, and I think he feels that responsibility, so his shot selection is drastically improved and better. And then the last thing, I think he’s taking the ball off the dribble way more than he ever has.”

Daniels, the dual-threat dynamo behind the Washington Commanders’ rapid turnaround, and Nix, whose steady playmaking turned the Denver Broncos into one of the league’s biggest surprises, are only the fourth pair of rookie quarterbacks to make the playoffs in the same season after serving as full-time starters.

And while the postseason debuts of their predecessors suggest deep playoff runs are unlikely, Daniels and Nix have already demonstrated their abilities to defy the odds.

“It’s exciting, but you’ve got to deal with those emotions,” Daniels said this week. “At the end of the day, you’ve got to go out there and play ball.”

Both quarterbacks are scheduled to play on the road Sunday.

Nix, whose Broncos finished 10-7 and as the AFC’s No. 7 seed, will face the second-seeded Buffalo Bills at 1 p.m. Denver is an 8.5-point underdog.

Daniels, whose Commanders went 12-5 and are the NFC’s No. 6 seed, will play on “Sunday Night Football” against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who won the NFC South at 10-7. Despite their superior record, the Commanders are three-point underdogs.

Nix and Daniels are the last rookies standing after a 2024 NFL Draft in which a record six quarterbacks were taken within the first 12 picks.

It is likely no coincidence that Nix and Daniels both entered the NFL with five years of college experience.

Nix started 61 games for Auburn and Oregon, taking advantage of the 2020 season’s COVID-19 waiver that granted an extra year of eligibility. Daniels started 55 games at Arizona State and LSU.

After winning the Heisman Trophy with the Tigers in 2023, Daniels entered April’s draft with sky-high hype. The Commanders made him the No. 2 overall selection — one pick behind fellow quarterback Caleb Williams, who went first to the Chicago Bears.

Daniels, 24, delivered and then some, passing for 3,568 yards and 25 touchdowns against nine interceptions while rushing for 891 yards and six scores.

He led Washington to eight more wins than they recorded in 2023 — including five in a row to end the regular season.

One of his few losses came against the Buccaneers, who beat the Commanders, 37-20, in Tampa in Daniels’ NFL debut.

“He can process it really quickly and be onto the next play,” Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury said of Daniels. “He wants to be perfect, he wants to play great, he wants to win every rep, but once the play is over, he’s onto the next one really quickly, and that’s not easy to do as a young player or an established player, even.”

Nix, meanwhile, was more of a polarizing prospect. Lauded for his accuracy and ability to limit mistakes, Nix arrived with questions about his upside but showed enough for Sean Payton and the Broncos to use the No. 12 overall pick on him.

The 24-year-old Nix got off to a slow start, failing to throw a touchdown pass in any of his first three games, but he broke out soon after.

He recorded seven games with multiple touchdown passes and zero interceptions, including a four-TD performance in a Week 18 win over the Kansas City Chiefs to clinch the AFC’s final wild-card spot.

Nix finished his rookie year with 3,775 passing yards and 29 touchdowns against 12 interceptions, along with 430 rushing yards and four touchdowns on the ground.

“This is where I want to be,” Nix said ahead of his playoff debut. “These are the moments that matter. These are the moments that people remember you by, so we’ve just got to go out there and cut it loose.”

These NFL playoffs are set to become the first with multiple rookie quarterbacks since 2013, when Andrew Luck started for the Indianapolis Colts; Robert Griffin III started for Washington; and Russell Wilson started for the Seattle Seahawks.

Wilson was the only one of those rookies to win his playoff debut, beating Washington in a game in which Griffin suffered a knee injury that required surgery.

The previous instance of multiple rookie starters came in 2009, when Matt Ryan lost his playoff debut with the Atlanta Falcons and Joe Flacco won two playoff games with the Baltimore Ravens.

The only other occasion occurred in 1983, when John Elway of the Broncos (although in a relief appearance vs. the Seahawks) and Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins both lost.

And while only seven rookie quarterbacks have won a playoff start, neither Daniels nor Nix expects the moment to be too big.

“I know it’s cliché, but it’s literally just another game,” Daniels said. “There’s only a couple of teams that are still playing.”

Sure, his Baltimore Ravens had just clinched the AFC North with a Week 18 victory over the Cleveland Browns, but Jackson arrived at the postgame podium still in uniform, rather than wearing one of shirts or hats commemorating the division crown.

“I’m focused on the Wild Card game. I’m not going to lie to you,” Jackson said. “I’m cool with what’s going on today. I’m cool, don’t get me wrong, but my mind’s on something else.”

That something else is the only thing missing from Jackson’s otherwise illustrious résumé.

The 28-year-old quarterback is on a Hall of Fame trajectory, having already won two MVP Awards along with numbers never seen before in the NFL.

In 2024, Jackson became the first player to throw for 4,000 yards and rush for 900 yards in the same season. He also became the first player to throw more than 40 touchdown passes and fewer than five interceptions in the same campaign.

He is 70-24 as a starter in his seven regular seasons.

But Jackson enters Saturday night’s Wild Card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers with a 2-4 record in his playoff career. He has thrown six touchdown passes against six interceptions in those games, and his 75.7 postseason passer rating is 26.3 points lower than his regular-season mark.

He is the only two-time MVP in NFL history who hasn’t won a Super Bowl. He hasn’t even made it to one.

That’s the narrative Jackson is trying to change.

“I’d just be too excited,” Jackson said Tuesday of his past playoff games. “That’s all. Too antsy. I’m seeing things before it happened, like, ‘Oh, I got to calm myself down.’ But just being more experienced, I’ve found a way to balance it out.”

But the pressure Jackson faces is not unique to him.

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, too, still seeks his elusive first championship. A ring would validate the career of Allen, whose 76 wins, 262 total touchdowns and 30,595 total yards are the most ever through seven NFL seasons.

His 28 passing touchdowns and 12 rushing touchdowns in 2024 marked the fifth consecutive season that Allen totaled at least 40 touchdowns.

And while his statistics paled in comparison to Jackson’s, most bookmakers expect Allen to win his first NFL MVP Award this year after leading the Bills to a 13-4 record and an AFC East title despite a lesser supporting cast.

Allen, 28, enters Sunday’s game against the Denver Broncos with a 100.0 passer rating and 21 touchdown passes against four interceptions in 10 playoff appearances.

But Allen is just 5-5 in those games and, like Jackson, has never reached a Super Bowl.

“There’s two things I can control: It’s my attitude and my effort,” Allen said Wednesday. “And what everybody else says, that’s their own prerogative.”

Much in the way Tom Brady’s annual excellence limited Peyton Manning’s postseason upside, Patrick Mahomes‘ dynastic run with the Kansas City Chiefs has proven problematic for the other AFC quarterbacks of his era.

Last year, Jackson completed just 54.1% of his passes in a 17-10 loss to Kansas City in the AFC Championship Game.

Allen is 0-3 in the postseason against the Chiefs.

In the last five years, the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls and reached another. The Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow is the only AFC quarterback to defeat Mahomes during that stretch, but he went on to lose in Super Bowl LVI and has not been back.

This year’s AFC playoffs again run through Kansas City, where Mahomes is 12-2 in his playoff career. This season, the Chiefs went 15-1 in games started by Mahomes — with the lone loss coming in Buffalo in Week 11 — to clinch the AFC’s No. 1 seed.

Kansas City would not face Baltimore or Buffalo until the AFC Championship Game, making Mahomes likely the final dragon Jackson or Allen would have to slay to reach the Super Bowl.

Before then, Jackson and Allen stand in each other’s ways. Wins by both this weekend would pit Baltimore against Buffalo in the divisional round — the same round in which Allen’s Bills beat Jackson’s Ravens, 17-3, in 2021 in their first playoff meeting.

“We know what’s at stake,” Jackson said Tuesday. “It’s win or go home.”

Monday night’s playoff matchup between the Rams and Vikings cannot be played in Southern California due to the area’s devastating wildfires, and the game will be moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., the NFL said.

The game, which the Rams were scheduled to host at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., will still happen Monday at the home of the Arizona Cardinals.

“The decision was made in consultation with public officials, the participating clubs and the NFLPA,” the NFL said in a statement.

The NFL’s acknowledgment came as three major fires caused widespread destruction in Los Angeles, where, as of Thursday afternoon, officials had confirmed five deaths and issued evacuation orders for at least 180,000 people.

Much of the devastation occurred in the Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood about 20 miles west of downtown Los Angeles and about 20 miles northwest of Inglewood.

“You feel helpless watching it from here and know how many people are being impacted,” said Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, who was the Rams’ offensive coordinator from 2020-21.

“Definitely, Southern California, I hold near and dear to my heart, and I have some friends that have lost homes. You just think of the impact it has on so many folks. Our prayers are with all of those impacted and definitely with the brave first responders that are putting their lives on the line.”

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers’ game against the Charlotte Hornets at Crypto.com Arena in downtown L.A. was postponed.

Both the Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers, who play at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, are next scheduled to host home games on Saturday. Earlier in the week, Lakers head coach J.J. Redick said his family was among those to evacuate the Palisades.

“Praying for everyone in Southern California!” Lakers star LeBron James wrote Wednesday on X.

Wednesday’s game between the Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames at Crypto.com Arena was also postponed.

Extreme winds and drought conditions fueled the blazes during a season in which wildfires are atypical.

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said his 90-year-old mother is OK but that his childhood home in the Palisades burned down. He visited the house two weeks ago.

“That’s my hometown,” Kerr said Thursday. “All of my friends who are from there, pretty much they’ve lost their homes, their family homes, childhood homes. Our old high school’s gone. The town looks like it’s just been completely wiped out. It’s surreal and devastating.”

SoFi Stadium could host both the AFC and NFC Championship games in two weeks, as the Los Angeles Chargers also call the 70,000-seat venue home. The Chargers are the No. 5 seed in the AFC and will begin the playoffs with a road game in Houston on Saturday.

On Wednesday, the Chargers had their offensive and defensive units practice separately at their facility in nearby El Segundo, Calif., which allowed players to spend less time on the field amid the area’s poor air quality.

“We’re trying to keep everybody safe and healthy as much as possible and also at the same time get our preparation done for the game,” defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said.

SoFi Stadium, meanwhile, has a roof but is not a fully enclosed dome, as it features openings along its sides.

Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was among the thousands of people to experience a power outage, according to ESPN’s Pat McAfee, who said Rodgers canceled a scheduled appearance Wednesday on his afternoon talk show.

“He’s in the middle of it,” McAfee said. “He said he has friends and neighbors that have lost everything in these fires.”

The controversy occurred in July of 2014, when Howard was a member of the Houston Rockets.

“Less than 10 minutes after I tweet that, I get a call from the commissioner of the NBA,” Howard said on Monday’s episode of “The GAUDs Show” podcast. “Agents, people working with my foundation at the time, Texas. ‘You’ve got to erase this tweet. You’ve got to take this down.’ I’m like, ‘What did I do that was so bad?’”

Howard, 39, said, “I dang near got kicked out [of] the league for it.”

In an email Wednesday to the Daily News, NBA spokesman Mike Bass refuted Howard’s claim as “categorically false.”

In 2014, Howard deleted the tweet shortly after he published it, then apologized in subsequent posts for commenting on “international politics,” according to The Atlantic’s coverage at the time. Howard’s tweet came amid conflict between Israel and Hamas.

On this week’s podcast episode, Howard said he felt compelled to share the tweet after meeting Palestinian fans while attending a movie in Houston.

“They asked me to just bring some awareness to what’s going on in their country,” Howard said. “Me having a big heart, I’m like, ‘You know what? I want people to know the struggles y’all [are] having.’”

But the alleged response surprised Howard, he said.

“When you’re in the league, you be in that place where, ‘If I say too much or if I say something, I may not get a job no more.’ I’ve got to hold my tongue, and that’s so hard to do when you are faced with so many situations.”

Howard played 18 NBA seasons from 2004-2022, including three with the Rockets from 2013-16. He also suited up for the Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers, Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Washington Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers.

The former No. 1 overall pick averaged 15.7 points, 11.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game in his career; earned NBA Defensive Player of the Year honors three times; and won a championship with the Lakers in 2020.

The league “will remain in contact with both clubs and the NFLPA” ahead of Monday night’s NFC Wild-Card matchup at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., the NFL said in a statement.

That announcement came about an hour before Wednesday night’s game between the Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames at Crypto.com Arena in downtown L.A. was postponed.

As of Wednesday afternoon, at least three major fires in the Los Angeles area had resulted in two confirmed deaths, destroyed more than 1,000 structures and prompted more than 70,000 evacuations, according to officials.

Many of those evacuations were in the Pacific Palisades area, where Los Angeles Lakers head coach J.J. Redick lives.

“My family and my wife’s family, my wife’s twin sister, they’ve evacuated,” Redick said Tuesday night before facing the Mavericks in Dallas. “I know that a lot of people are freaking out right now, including my family. … Thoughts and prayers for sure, and hope everybody stays safe.”

Inglewood is about 20 miles southeast of the Palisades. It is possible SoFi Stadium could host both the AFC and NFC Championship Games in two weeks, as the Los Angeles Chargers also call the 70,000-seat venue home.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the fires,” Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp wrote Wednesday on X. “Thank you to the firefighters, first responders, and everyone else doing their best in unfathomable circumstances.”

Exacerbating the blazes were extreme winds that caused the flames to spread quickly.

The fires caused power outages at more than 40,000 homes, authorities said. Among those to lose power was Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, according to ESPN’s Pat McAfee, who said Rodgers canceled a scheduled appearance on his daytime talk show Wednesday due to the circumstances.

“He’s in the middle of it,” McAfee said. “He said he has friends and neighbors that have lost everything in these fires. Gone, just in a matter of one day worth of fires.”

The Lakers are scheduled to begin a five-game homestand on Thursday night at Crypto.com Arena. The Los Angeles Clippers, who play at the new Intuit Arena in Inglewood, are next scheduled to play at home on Saturday.

“Praying for everyone in Southern California!!!” Lakers star LeBron James wrote on X.

With News Wire Services