NEW YORK — The play stuck with Stephon Castle through the night into the morning after Game 2 in San Antonio: Victor Wembanyama threw the basketball — and a chance to tie the NBA Finals at one game apiece — off of the second-year guard’s back, off the Frost Bank Center hardwood floors, right into Jalen Brunson’s hands.

“I don’t know what we could have done differently at the end of that game to pull it out,” Castle said. “It didn’t happen, so on to the next.”

The Knicks led by 14 with 6:04 left in the fourth quarter of Game 2 on Friday but found themselves down, 104-102, with under a minute left before Brunson tied the game with a fading two. Moments later, he missed a go-ahead 16-footer, the rebound landing in Wembanyama’s hands with a chance to seal the deal — the kind of moment he’s been dreaming of just as much as the Larry O’Brien NBA Finals trophy he claims is the meaning of his existence on Earth.

But he bombed atomically. Wembanyama bailed the Knicks out.

The Knicks know it. They played with fire and miraculously escaped unscathed. They can’t afford to do so again if they plan on ending a 53-year NBA championship drought against a desperate Spurs team fully believing it gave both Games 1 and 2 away.

“In terms of that play, you never know because you could go down and get a stop. So you never know what play can change a game,” Josh Hart said. “But for us, we know that we have to do better. We were up like 14, and I think we’re the best fourth-quarter team in the league, so we got to make sure that we’re locked in and executing in that regard.”

“There were many things [we could have done better],” Wembanyama added. ”From simply not turning the ball over to being smarter about fouls, or even fouling earlier sometimes in the possession. It could have went a thousand ways.”

The Knicks and Spurs have played 96 total minutes over the course of Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals. Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson has pored over those minutes methodically. There are self-inflicted wounds, for sure. Then, of course, there are wounds imposed by the Knicks.

Johnson likes that his defense is forcing the Knicks late into the shot clock. But the Spurs fouled on an OG Anunoby three with 2:37 left in regulation. They fell asleep as Brunson scored on an uncontested layup on a baseline out of bounds play with 1:56 to go. And then there was the unforced error for a player that’s been so good, so often — the Wembanyama pass to Castle’s back forcing the Spurs to foul Brunson and send him to the line for the game-winning free throw.

“Playing better with the lead that we had, the 14-point lead. The way they fought back and took the lead is just a credit to how good they are,” Brunson said. “Us staying composed helped us win that game. We do need to be able to finish the game better. Unacceptable the way we just obviously just let that 14-point lead go the way we did.”

Had it not been for Wemby’s blunder, things may have gone differently for a team that had flipped Game 2 onto its head. The Spurs outscored the Knicks, 29-21, in the fourth quarter. They had the momentum late before Wemby threw it off his teammate’s back, a mistake the Knicks can bet he won’t make again.

“We have to be better at taking advantage of when we put ourselves in good starting spots to take advantage of the things that we are doing well,” Johnson said. “I think that’s probably been — if there’s a thematic thing, the biggest thing is we’ve put in some good, hard work at times, and have not taken advantage of that hard work. That’s been partially some undisciplined things of us, partially also New York has stepped up and made some plays at the end of the clock and finished out possessions.”

Mikal Bridges has been on the wrong side of NBA history before. Of the 37 teams to take a 2-0 series lead in the NBA Finals, only five — including Bridges’ 2021 Phoenix Suns — have gone on to lose the series.

“I just remember losing four straight. That’s what I remember out of that,” he recalled. “They all understand as well, knowing the series is far from over. [We’ve] got to keep playing desperate and be the more desperate team.”

Bridges delivered an animated postgame interview immediately after the Knicks survived Game 2 in San Antonio and blasted his team for its poor fourth quarter play, a sentiment he repeated after practice at MSG on Sunday.

“Got to be better the whole fourth: turnovers, shot selection, a lot of transition defense in that fourth quarter itself,” he said. “Keep going. Can’t get too comfortable. We had a good lead, but we know how the league works. Being this far, playing against a really good team, no lead’s ever safe.”

The Knicks pointed to their transition defense. They didn’t turn the ball over at all in the fourth quarter of Game 1 but gave it away twice in the final frame of Game 2. They gave the Spurs life, and in turn, nearly died.

“[Poor] execution, for sure, in the fourth quarter,” Hart said. “I feel like we played a little bit slower. Transition defense wasn’t as crisp as it was in the first three quarters. I think if we focus on that [and] rebounding, we’ll be good.”

Almost, of course, doesn’t count. Plus Wembanyama had a chance to win the game at the buzzer: He settled for a pull-up two over Mitchell Robinson that never had a chance the moment it left its hands. These Spurs, however, are fast learners. They won’t make the same mistake twice.

And neither can the Knicks.

“I think a poor fourth by us, obviously with all that happening, the resiliency to stay together and stay mentally locked in and still find a way to win,” Bridges said. “You can’t do that to the team that is that good, give chances like that. We got to be way better.”

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