In their wildest dreams, the Knicks never fathomed shooting 3-pointers the way they are shooting them. In fact, that was a chief concern when the season started. People running the Knicks kept asking themselves a couple of questions:

Can we shoot it effectively enough to win?

Can Julius Randle shoot it effectively enough to become a big-time player?

The Knicks made 19 3-pointers in 35 attempts, and Randle made 6 of 8 while scoring 40 points Wednesday night in the Garden to nail down their eighth straight victory. They beat the Hawks in overtime, 137-127, in a game that was shaped by playoff intensity, playoff physicality and playoff stakes, a game that left the Knicks in fourth place in the Eastern Conference. Fourth.

Hey, maybe they would have lost had Trae Young not injured his ankle late in the third quarter.

Not that anyone in New York cares about maybes when the Knicks are playing basketball like this.

Everyone is calling them likable, and rightfully so. But that word is only a step on the journey to a much more significant adjective:

Memorable.

These Knicks have a chance to be remembered in New York forever, and they need to keep handling that chance like they would the most precious gemstone.

The Knicks were down eight in the middle of the fourth before ripping off 15 straight points. The Hawks forced overtime after Bogdan Bogdanovic’s tying 3-pointer with 6.2 seconds left, and after Randle waited too long to attempt a potential game-winner.

It didn’t matter. The Knicks scored the first 10 points of overtime, in part because of Randle’s special playmaking ability, his pass to Reggie Bullock for a 3 and his pass to Nerlens Noel for a dunk. Randle led the Knicks with six assists, and added 11 rebounds. He’s doing everything for this franchise except the color commentary.

Randle’s Knicks are in fourth place 60 games into a 72-game season. Fourth place at year’s end means hosting a first-round playoff series. Who would’ve believed the same Knicks expected to win about 22 games would be pondering that, and looking down at the Celtics and Heat in the standings, as the regular season turns for home?

New York has fallen hard for this group because of the way they compete every night, and because their work ethic matches the city’s, and because the veterans seem to enjoy the wide-eyed vibrancy and potential of the kids.

“We have a true team,” Tom Thibodeau said. “They all play for each other.”

It doesn’t hurt that they are coached by a tri-state local, Thibodeau, who long saw this as his dream job. “He would crawl to Madison Square Garden,” someone close to him told me in 2016. And crawl Thibs eventually did, with the trace of a smile that was rarely seen in his previous stops, in Chicago and Minnesota.

But in the end, this year’s Knicks are the beneficiaries of the incompetence that marked their predecessors for the better part of two decades. Those Knicks were so unlikable that the bar for earning the fans’ affection was set at an artificially low level. For any Knicks diehard worn to the nub by year after year of defective products, it’s been a pleasure to watch them establish standards and play with a purpose.

Knicks fans really don’t ask for much. Despite their flaws, Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire will always be remembered fondly in the city for joining the Knicks when others were running away from them.

Today’s Knicks? Chances are, their best-case scenario would be earning one of the top six seeds to stay out of the play-in, and then winning a first-round series before falling to one of the heavyweights in a hard-fought conference semi. Maybe the Knicks will score a major upset and reach the conference finals. Or maybe they’ll lose in the first round.

Either way, if these Knicks are proven responsible for creating a culture based on grit and accountability that ultimately produces a consistent contender and, yes, a championship team, New York will love them long after they are gone. And some of them will be gone when the real winning starts.

So for the good player who became a star on the Knicks’ watch (Randle), for the youngsters on the rise (RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley) and for those weathered vets who have contributed so much (the likes of Alec Burks, Reggie Bullock, Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson), the rest of this season amounts to a golden opportunity.

Finish what you started, and you will forever be treated in this city as champs.

Even if you weren’t around for the ticker-tape parade.