Tom Thibodeau ties Pat Riley on Knicks wins list

Tom Thibodeau has won more games with the Knicks than 12 of his 13 most recent predecessors coached.

Tuesday night’s 105-91 victory over the 76ers at Madison Square Garden tied Thibodeau with Pat Riley for fourth in franchise history with 223 wins and moves him within arm’s reach of Jeff Van Gundy (248) for third in the franchise record book.

“All that individual stuff, it’s a byproduct of having great players, and you share that with your team,” Thibodeau said before tipoff. “I obviously have great respect for Pat Riley and certainly Jeff, and what they’ve done in their careers. The history of the franchise — when you look at the great players, organizationally what it represents — it’s an honor to be here.”

Thibodeau still hasn’t led the Knicks back to the Eastern Conference finals as his fifth season nears the playoffs, but he has done the seemingly impossible and provided stability where it once was sorely lacking.

“It’s huge,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said of Thibodeau’s steady presence. “Whenever you go through a coaching carousel, it’s hard to develop guys and it’s hard to have guys break out. Having that stability is huge for the players, but it’s also huge for the organization and fans to really have something to build around and cheer for.”

In that regard, this marriage actually is a two-way street.

By the end of this week — after a two-game road trip to face the Cavaliers and Hawks — Thibodeau will have coached more games for the Knicks (395) than he did for the Bulls, who gave him his first shot to lead in 2010 after a 21-year tenure as an NBA assistant. His in-between stint guiding the Timberwolves lasted a relatively brief 204 games, so the Knicks have given him stability, too.

“I know what this team means to the city, having grown up in Connecticut and being a Knick fan,” Thibodeau said. “We have to continue to do it every day.”

Where have these Knicks taken on Thibodeau’s persona?

“That competitive nature. That’s there,” Hart said. “Obviously, an 82-game season, he does a great job — [with] the attention to detail and preparation.”

“Competition” is exactly what drew Thibodeau into coaching in the first place, after his playing career ended at Salem State.

“You get to the point where you love the game so you ask yourself, ‘What’s next?’ ” Thibodeau said recently. “If you are not a pro player, you think, ‘Coaching [and] teaching.’ I always loved that aspect. My coaches and teachers had the biggest influence, outside of my family.”

The directive from Thibodeau’s parents to all five siblings was the same: Pursue your passion.

That a son’s passion was the same as his father’s was no coincidence after Tom Sr. fell in love with basketball as a student at St. Bonaventure and later brought his son on an annual pilgrimage to New York to see a Bonnies game and a Knicks game.

It sparked what became a career of early mornings, late nights and check-ins with the father who showed him the way.

“It was just more support,” Thibodeau said. “Once I decided that’s what I wanted to do, he encouraged me all along the way, like any parent. There are going to be bumps in the road. You may not have a good season. [He’d ask], ‘What did you learn from it? How are you growing? How do you get better?’ ”

Thibodeau’s Knicks have a .567 winning percentage.

That is the best since another era that he was a part of — as one of Van Gundy’s assistants (.590 from 1996-2002).

Of the 13 coaches who followed, only Mike D’Antoni lasted more than 190 games, and only Don Nelson (34-25) and Mike Woodson (109-79) had winning records.

Credit the success to the work ethic that he developed as a longtime assistant and shared with others.

Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue was a recently retired player starting out as director of basketball development with the Celtics when Thibodeau was an assistant in 2009-10.

A few years later, when Lue was hired by the Clippers as an assistant, he watched all of Thibodeau’s old training-camp videos to learn defensive terminology and keep the system the same for head coach Doc Rivers as it was under Thibodeau’s watch in Boston.

“We would meet every day at 5:15 a.m. — when most guys are going to sleep — and then go right to film,” Lue said. “Understanding how he used to break it down, what was his counter, what was his thinking. He did a lot for me — teaching me the hard work part of it, but also what to look for and how he presented things.”

The Knicks are reaping the rewards with another 50-win season in sight.