The Sixers have irrational confidence for a team who not only lost the season series, 3-1, but also boasts an average margin of defeat of 26 points in those losses.

Yet their confidence is rooted in reality: The Sixers held the Knicks to just 73 points in a March 10 stunner at Madison Square Garden. It was the Knicks’ fewest points scored in a game since 2018, and the fewest points any team scored in a game this season.

The 6-foot-7 Kelly Oubre Jr. served as Brunson’s primary defender. The Sixers also used the 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum and the 6-foot-8 Tobias Harris as lanky options to defend the star Knicks guard in space. And if he gets healthy, they’ll likely deploy De’Anthony Melton — who is a game-time decision recovering from a back injury — as a point-of-attack defender against Brunson, too.

Melton did not play on March 10 against the Knicks, but Oubre proclaimed he was “glued” to Brunson “all night” after handing the Knicks a disappointing loss at the Garden.

On this night, Philly’s size and length on the wing got the best of Brunson.

“They’re a great team. JB [Jalen Brunson] is a great player,” Oubre said after his Sixers beat the Heat on Wednesday. “But at the end of the day, it’s gonna be Philadelphia vs. New York. We’ve just got to come ready to play and stop them.”

The numbers suggest Brunson doesn’t fare as well against size at the point of attack as Thibodeau’s answer — “it won’t be the first time a longer wing has on him” — would suggest

On March 10, Brunson shot just 6-of-22 against the Sixers for 19 points.

In a Feb. 22 victory — yes a victory — he finished with 21 points and 12 assists but shot just 5-of-18 from the field and turned the ball over seven times.

His two other outings against the Sixers were in line with his season averages: 29 points on 11-of-20 shooting in a 36-point blowout on Jan. 5, and 20 points and nine assists to just one turnover on 7-of-12 shooting in another blowout on March 12.

Thibodeau likes the numbers, and here they are: 29-of-72 (40.2%) shooting from the field, 9-of-30 (30%) shooting from 3-point range, and a 3-1 record against the Sixers, with Embiid only playing once, albeit in the 36-point window-washing.

The individual numbers, in this case, don’t stack at all against a 3-1 record the Knicks hope to one-up to advance past the first round of the playoffs.

Against a “creative” Sixers defense, rest assured the offense will flow through Brunson — but New York is prepared for the ball to be both in his hands against an opponent with a size advantage, or out of his hands, into his teammates’, who’ve made the right play more often than not on a Knicks team securing the East’s No. 2 seed.

“I think the beautiful thing about our offense and about the way our team is built is Jalen is gonna make the right read,” DiVincenzo said. “If it’s to get off the ball, he’ll get off the ball.

“You have to know that first and foremost, Thibs and Jalen are gonna be on the same page about whatever needs to be done and then the confidence that both of them have when Jalen gets off the ball. We have a lot of guys around him that can make plays, one for themselves but two, to get the ball back to Jalen to get easy shots, to get easy ones, and that’s gonna be the challenging part for them to lock in on.

“You can throw anything at Jalen but he’s not the type of player that you throw something, he’s gonna make mistakes. You can throw something at him and he’s gonna adjust accordingly, and the guys around him can all make plays, so that’s the benefit for us.”

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