NBA

A third win for Knicks over Heat would be convincing

Maybe Jason Kidd is right, technically. Kidd’s entering the last couple of weeks of his 30s, and he’s been playing in the NBA since there were laces on the ball, so he’s seen a few things, won himself a title, played in a couple of other Finals. This isn’t his first rodeo.

“This,” Kidd said Friday, “is just a dress rehearsal.”

He was talking about this afternoon’s marvelous Manhattan matinee, the Heat bringing their 13-game winning streak to the Garden, the Knicks trying to prove to people — themselves at the front of that line — the three wins they have strung together across the past eight days are a signal of something other than a mathematical correction.

What will we learn today? Look, to a large extent, Kidd is right. The absolute best-case scenario for the Knicks, a convincing win, would make them 3-0 against the Heat this year, 2-0 at home. It will allow them something to point to during the inevitable lulls in the schedule to come, something for coach Mike Woodson to say, as he’s said before, as he said again yesterday: “There’s not a team we can’t beat.”

And yet: does anyone believe a Knicks victory today would alter by even a fraction of an iota the way the Heat feel about themselves as defending champions, or the way they feel about the Knicks as challengers to the crown? Does anyone really believe the Heat would brood over being 0-3 against the Knicks?

Of course not. So, yes, in some ways, this really is only a dress rehearsal, an audition of sorts for the Knicks, an opportunity for all of us to whet our appetites and think about what the Garden, and the city, would look and sound and feel like if we wind up getting a playoff series between these teams sometime in late May.

And you know what?

That shouldn’t change the Knicks’ greater mission, which is this: win the game anyway. Win the game even though winning it guarantees nothing, even though winning it won’t make the distance between the Heat and the Knicks in the standings and everywhere else evaporate.

Win it so you can rinse some of the sour taste that has accumulated in the months since the 18-5 start, that lingers despite the modest three-game winning streak, that will loiter until the Knicks actually win a postseason series for the first time since the Clinton Administration.

Win it so Knicks fans don’t feel so terribly self-conscious about harboring hopes for something special across the next few months. Win it so the Knicks themselves don’t have to keep answering questions — or asking the questions themselves, privately — whether November and December were mere mirages.

“It’s a game we’re looking forward to,” said Knicks center Tyson Chandler who, like Kidd, knows the difference between a big game and a BIG GAME yet still understands today’s opportunity. “It’s going to be a lot of excitement. These are the games that are fun.”

They’re more fun if you win. In so many ways, the Knicks’ aspirations are attached to four games: two home victories against the Heat and the Spurs, two road victories against the Heat and the Spurs. Those are the two teams presently occupying the 1 seeds in either conference, a combined 88-28, and those are the four games the Knicks use whenever anyone wants to brush off their own .636 winning percentage as built on the backs of bums.

“They’re the best team in the league,” Woodson said of the Heat. “They’re the world champions. We’re going to have to compete 48 minutes to beat them. We’ve got to be committed. They’re not going to give you a game. We’ve got to do everything necessary to secure a win. Because we’re trying to stay at the top just like they are.”

You can hear the rest of basketball smile at that last sentiment, whisper, “How cute.” Rare is the believer who believes in the Knicks’ odds against the Heat, and that won’t change much no matter what happens this afternoon.

Still … a win would be better. A win would be one more piece of foundation that would legitimize the Knicks in their own minds. They still have plenty of time to persuade the world to their intentions. Now is as good a time as any to convince themselves.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com