SAN FRANCISCO — James Dolan reminded us there wasn’t much wriggle room with his team.

Finals or Failure.

Within 10 days later, the Knicks were pummeled twice in two days and the head coach, fresh off his reunion tour in Northern California, was applauding the effort, a rather dispiriting effort, mind you, of a 126-113 defeat to the Warriors on Thursday night.

“Our competitiveness was there throughout the game,” Mike Brown said.