The Knicks’ offense flowed with Karl-Anthony Towns as the hub. Can they keep it up?

Signs of an adjusted offense were obvious just after tip-off. The New York Knicks had fallen behind 2-1 in their Eastern Conference first-round series. The Atlanta Hawks had a chance to come within a win of ending New York’s season. And so, a desperate team turned to a place it hadn’t reached so often since autumn.

Back then, Knicks All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns was outspokenly uncomfortable with the squad’s new offense under its new head coach, Mike Brown. But on Saturday, when New York blew out Atlanta to tie its best-of-seven playoff series at two games apiece, he appeared right at home.

It showed immediately.

Five minutes into the game, the Knicks went to a play they have used every so often throughout this season. The execution had never been so pretty.

Towns receives the ball at the left elbow. In the corner on his side of the court is OG Anunoby. In the other one is Mikal Bridges. Josh Hart sets up on the right block. Once Towns receives the basketball, Jalen Brunson sprints from the right side of the floor to the left to set a screen for Anunoby in the corner. The objective is to spring Anunoby for an open cut to the basket. If that look doesn’t work, Brunson can shift into a post-up or curl around Towns for a dribble handoff.

But the Knicks didn’t have to worry about concessions this time.

Brunson laid a perfect screen, impeding Hawks forward Jalen Johnson. Anunoby sliced to the basket, and Towns fired a needle-threading pass into his mitts for a two-handed slam.

The Knicks’ offense didn’t move so fluidly in any of the series’ first three games as it did on this single possession. Atlanta’s two All-Defensive-caliber guards — Dyson Daniels, who finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker — have engulfed New York’s creators. Bridges has stopped putting the ball on the ground. Brunson’s pick-and-rolls have disintegrated in a way they never do.

But between Thursday’s one-point loss and Saturday’s 16-point win, New York made a conscious choice to run the attack more through Towns, who finished Game 4 with his first career playoff triple-double. The strategy would shift Brunson away from the basketball, cutting and setting screens like the one he stood tall for on Anunoby’s dunk. And Towns, whether it was a choice or growing comfort, executed differently than he had before.

After all, the Knicks had mostly scrapped this type of offense, where Towns facilitated from what’s called the “pinch post.”

“If our spacing is not on point, none of that stuff can happen,” Brown said. “Your spacing has to be on point, and your screening has to be good, and your cuts have to be hard and sharp.”

Next time Towns receives a pass on a play like this one — and the Knicks will presumably lean on him again in Tuesday’s Game 5 — take your eyes off the basketball and pan them down to his size-20 feet. Where is he standing? Throughout much of this season, the answer to that question has been “too far from the hoop.”

Just last month, the Knicks tried this same play against the San Antonio Spurs but botched the spacing. Towns caught the basketball 5 feet behind the 3-point arc instead of inside it. Anunoby lingered closer to the basket before the arrival of Brunson, who jogged instead of sprinted into the screen. It gave the Spurs time to communicate what was coming and switch the action, taking away Anunoby’s cut.

The possession ended in a Hart layup but not because the Knicks were purposeful with their movement to begin it. In Game 4, they moved with gusto. When five guys are locked in — when Brunson is angling his screen just enough to get in the way, when Anunoby is taking off like he’s Rickey Henderson, when Towns is positioned at the proper distance — those assists can build, like they did Saturday.

“I just feel like opportunities presented themselves, and my teammates made it happen today,” Towns said after his triple-double. “They made great cuts and allowed me to make those plays you guys are talking about.”

What Towns pulled off in Game 4, a 20-point, 10-assist, 10-rebound performance that was even more dominant than the stat line suggests, was Brown’s vision from the beginning of the season, especially against a team like Atlanta. The Hawks are well constructed to defend Brunson, a smaller guard, but the same can’t be said about them and Towns, a 7-footer who towers over all of Atlanta’s main guys.

The Knicks understood that when they formed Saturday’s game plan. Brunson set 10 off-ball screens, his second-highest total for a single game this season, according to Second Spectrum. Towns delivered 11 passes from inside the 3-point arc that led to shots, his highest total in one game all year. For perspective, he tossed only five potential assists from inside the arc over the first three games of the series.

The Knicks ran the same pinch-post play, the one that produced the Anunoby dunk in the first quarter, to begin Game 4’s final period. Once again, it led to success.

Towns retrieved the basketball inside the arc. Brunson set the screen for Anunoby, who bolted to the hoop, this time jetting by Hawks wing Jonathan Kuminga and absorbing a nasty foul at the rim, plunging to the floor and landing on his lower back. He dusted himself off and went to the line for two free throws.

A playoff series is a living organism. Come Tuesday, Hawks coach Quin Snyder will try new ways to counter Towns’ facilitating. If the Knicks attempt that pinch-post play again, watch the two defenders manning Brunson and Anunoby to see if they switch instead of trying to keep their matchups. Doing so could set up either player for a mismatch, but it also could eliminate Anunoby’s cut to the hoop, just as the Spurs did when they thwarted this action successfully last month.

But no matter what changes Atlanta arrives with, the Knicks must remember one concept: The spacing around and by Towns has to be on point. The screens have to be good. The cuts have to be sharp.

And if they are, Towns can take over the night.