Donte DiVincenzo started this season as a reserve.
He can finish it with the greatest 3-point shooting campaign in Knicks history.
Following his dazzling performance in Saturday’s victory over the Nets, DiVincenzo sits just 18 treys from tying the single-season mark of 241 set by Evan Fournier in 2022.
DiVincenzo told The Post he’s into becoming the Knicks long-distance king — “Hell yeah, obviously I want to be in the record books” — but it can’t be a focus.
“I don’t think about it. Obviously I’m aware of it, but I don’t go into the game going, ‘How many do I need?’ ” DiVincenzo said. “That’s for you guys to talk about, that’s for everybody else to have fun with. But when you start doing that — there’s basketball karma, basketball gods. That’s not something [I want to mess with].
“There’s energy to basketball. So just play the right way and good things will come.”
It’s been an improbable rise to DiVincenzo’s 223 3-pointers thus far.
He was signed in the summer as the backup shooting guard behind Quentin Grimes, hitting just 47 treys in his opening 22 games while averaging just 8.6 points.
But Grimes was frustrated and struggling with the starters, so DiVincenzo took the spot and skyrocketed behind supreme confidence and a license to shoot.
Starting Dec. 30 — the day RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley were traded to Toronto — DiVincenzo averaged 3.94 treys per game and elevated his season total to No. 1 in the Eastern Conference.
He’s only eclipsed by former teammate Steph Curry and Luka Doncic, both in the West.
If DiVincenzo plays the remaining 12 games, he needs to only average 1.5 3-pointers to set the record — a very achievable goal since he’s more than doubling that per game at a 39.5 percent clip.
His 223 treys is already second on the all-time list, having recently surpassed Julius Randle’s 218 (accomplished in 2023) and John Starks’ 217 (1995).
With the rise in 3-point shooting in the NBA, it’s hardly a hallowed record but still impressive considering DiVincenzo, a six-year vet, never came close to this mark in previous campaigns.
He’s also pushed his scoring average to a career-best 14.5.
“It’s amazing to think [about the record],” DiVincenzo said. “Going back when I signed here, I didn’t even know that record existed until somebody brought it up in January when I was making seven or eight [3-pointers] a night. And I was like, ‘That would be cool.’
“But it was so far away that I never really think about it. Honestly it’s a credit and testament to 1) who you’re playing with; and 2) who you play for.”
DiVincenzo, who signed a four-year, roughly $50 million deal, is a big supporter of Tom Thibodeau, who has provided the freedom to launch treys as long as the grunt work is accomplished.
“That’s the foundation: defense and rebounding. If you defend and you rebound and you do what he asks, then offensively it’s a green light,” DiVincenzo said. “It’s freedom, within reason. There’s not a situation where he’s going to be like, ‘Don’t shoot that shot.’ He wants everybody to play with the utmost confidence as long as you’re playing on the defensive end.”
Still, DiVincenzo has noticed how his increased production and usage has resulted in an uptick in the attention received from opposing defenses.
It’s apparent without Randle and OG Anunoby in the lineup, and especially true when Jalen Brunson sits like against the Mavericks on Feb. 8 — when DiVincenzo dropped a career-high 36 points but the Knicks lost.
“They’re just trying to be physical and not let me touch the ball,” he said. “Which in year’s past I’ve just been getting open 3s. Now they’re contested ones or running off screens, that’s something I’ve gotten used to now.”
It’s been harder shots but also more shots.
“I think it’s a matter of who you’re playing with. When you’re playing with Klay [Thompson], you’re playing with Steph, the offense is running through them,” said DiVincenzo, who played last season with the Warriors. “They’re taking a lot of shots. Then I was playing with Jordan Poole, too. So I had 150 [3-pointers] last year but you come in this year, it’s pass-pass and anybody can shoot it. There’s not a focal point of two or three guys getting shots up.”
The result, for DiVincenzo, is probably record-breaking.
Coincidentally, he’ll face the man he’s chasing Monday — Fournier — who is now with the Pistons and has established a large bench role heading into the game at MSG.
Fournier understands his mark will be toppled.
“Donte is a heck of a shooter,” the Frenchman said last month, the previous time he played at MSG. “I’m pretty confident he will break it, for sure.”
