By his own admission, Josh Hart has been ‘kind of in my head with a lot of stuff’ since the All-Star break. 

He’d missed 28 of his 38 three-point attempts since the break. And he was part of a Knicks starting lineup that was struggling early in games. 

As is usually the case, there were calls in some corners of social media to pull Hart from the starting lineup. 

But he showed those fans – and anyone else watching – why he should stay put on Tuesday night. 

Hart scored a Knicks career high 33 points in a win over Indiana. He went 12-for-13 from the floor and hit all five of his three-point attempts. 

“I just like that he took the right shots and he didn’t hesitate,” Mike Brown said after the game. 

Brown said earlier in the week that he wouldn’t hesitate to change his starting lineup if the group continued to struggle. But it doesn’t sound like he would consider taking Hart out of the lineup. 

“I think the main thing…is him connecting the group. I’m not saying he is Andre Iguodala or his game is like Andre Iguodala’s, but there are a lot of similarities where you watch him…he’s really good in a lot of different areas,” Brown said Tuesday. “But more importantly, he connects the group and having a guy like that, especially to start games, is huge…. He’s been fantastic giving us that energy, giving us the connectivity we needed with that starting group and then doing the little things. Offensive glass, pushing the pace, getting off in transition. He’s a switchable guy, he’s a physical guy and (he does) a lot of things that don’t necessarily show up in the stat sheet that … help with connectivity as well.”

Hart did plenty that showed up in the stat sheet on Tuesday. In addition to hitting all of his three-point attempts, he had seven rebounds and five assists. But anyone who watches this team knows that they are at a different level when Hart is hitting his shots. 

After the Knicks’ win over Indiana, Hart was asked if he could gain confidence from his strong shooting. 

“I think since All-Star I was struggling in terms of shooting,” he said. “I think I’m kind of in my head with a lot of stuff. So I just got to trust my work and go out there and shoot my shots.”

Speaking of hitting shots, Mikal Bridges knocked down two threes in the fourth quarter after missing his first four attempts against Indiana. He hit those two threes with under seven minutes to play and the Knicks up by 22. Normally, a coach would rest his veteran starter in this circumstance. But Brown wanted Bridges to knock some shots down. The veteran wing had made just 29 percent of his threes in the past 15 games.

“To try to get anybody that hadn’t shot it well from the three-point line to get another look, especially in a game like this, was a good thing,” Brown said Tuesday. “You talk about Mikal’s streak and his durability – when he turned his ankle (in the first quarter), I was like, ‘Whoa.’ So for him to be able to somehow someway fight through that was good to see. So to try to get him an extra look or two down the stretch was something that we wanted to do.”

Brown said he played Jordan Clarkson over Mohamed Diawara because Clarkson had been scoring the ball at a high clip over the past four games.

“We’ll continue to see what happens going forward,” Brown said. “We’ve all had the pleasure of being able to see Mo at a young age contribute a lot. He just has to keep himself ready like Jordan did. Go out there when your number’s called, don’t do too much but do what you can do and perform at the highest level in terms of your work ethic, focus and attention to detail and just go from there.”

Steve Kerr has said several times this season that he thinks the NBA should shorten its schedule. Rick Carlisle was asked about it on Tuesday.

“It’d be great if it was possible to do that. There would be a lot involved with it. An obvious big revenue shift,” Carlisle said. “You’re talking about 10-12 percent of the games being eliminated... the question is would everyone be willing to do that if it was deemed that it would really help the game. It's a lively conversation. I’ve heard Adam talk about the possibility of shortening the season slightly, going back a few years. The game has changed. One of the compelling aspects of it to me is that when the effort was made to eliminate back-to-backs, in order to have the space to do that, you needed to shorten training camp. So training camp essentially became three weeks instead of four. That extra week to build a base in terms of strength, many layers of protection that you can get for the body, I’ve always wondered if the effort to have less back-to-backs was really worth it. Essentially, you’re playing every other day. But these are all questions. There are a lot of great things about today’s game (and) schedule. The longer All Star break has been a real positive…. To get to the heart of the matter, you’re going to have to talk about the finances of it. I certainly am in agreement that it’s conversation worth having…. (The exact solution) is hard to say… but the nature of the game has changed significantly. Steve is right on point with that. The speed and everything is quite different than it was 5-6 years ago, 3-4 years ago.”