The long-range shooting of Steve Novak and J.R. Smith carried the Knicks to their win over Boston Tuesday.
But after going a combined 15-for-20 from behind the 3-point arc against the Celtics, they predictably came back to reality in Wednesday night’s 104-95 victory over the Nets at Prudential Center.
Smith finished with 15 points and eight rebounds in 31 minutes, but went 6-for-16 from the field and 3-for-8 from 3-point range, while Novak went 3-for-8 from behind the arc to finish with nine points in 27 minutes.
“You strive the best game you have every night,” Novak said. “Some nights you’re going to go 8-for-10, and other nights you’re going to go 0-for-10, to be honest. I think when you have a night like that, it sets the bar at a level where it’s going to be tough to be consistently at, but I try to not overthink anything.
“If I make 8-for-10 or 0-for-10, I try to stay level-headed.”
For a player like Novak, who spends the majority of his time preparing to fire up his next 3-pointer, that mentality is as much a survival strategy as it is necessary for success.
“If you get too high or too low, it hurts you,” he said. “At least for me, as a shooter, I do think that’s true.
“If I go out there and make 10 in a row and I think, ‘Oh, this just happened,’ I’ll probably go out there and miss a bunch in a row. If I go out there and overthink and I’m trying to aim, I think I hurt myself, as well.”
Smith, who went 1-for-5 in the first half, credited the play of Carmelo Anthony, who scored 21 points in the first quarter, for getting the team off to a hot start in what clearly was a trap game for the Knicks, coming a day after their impressive 118-110 win over Boston.
““We came out kind of flat I think, as a team in the layup line there was a lot of goofing around and stuff,” Smith said. “In games like this, you can see it early. But he did a great job as a leader stepping up and really got cooking early.”
tbontemps@nypost.com