THE RIOT ACT

For two games, the Newark Riots looked like they were reheating the same old soup.

The defense was good enough. The chances were there. The margin was tiny. And Newark kept finding ways to lose anyway.

Game 1 at the Garden ended 64-62. Game 2 ended 59-57. Four total points separated the Riots from a 2-0 lead, but the box score told the familiar story: missed open threes, missed free throws, lost offensive rebounds, zero second-chance production when it mattered and just enough self-inflicted damage to make every possession feel heavier than the last.

New York deserved credit for surviving. Jalen Duren and Kristaps Porzingis supplied the backbone in the opener. In Game 2, the Knicks controlled the paint 44-26, won the offensive glass 10-4 and scored all seven of the game’s second-chance points. Then, with the game tied late, Newark left Josh Hart on the bench, Matas Buzelis ended up on Larry Johnson, and LJ attacked the mismatch for the decisive dunk.

Knicks 2. Riots 0.

Same old soup.

Then the series broke open in the strangest possible way.

Game 3 looked finished before halftime. New York built a 21-point lead and went to the locker room up 37-22. According to Ron’s post-series account, some Newark players were already talking about offseason plans, vacations and contracts. Hart had heard enough.

Ron says Hart stood up and challenged the room, essentially telling anyone already checked out that he would finish the fight himself. Ron’s reaction became the line that would follow the comeback everywhere afterward: “I wish I had five Josh mfin Harts.”

Then Hart went out and made the speech real.

Newark won the second half 49-32. The Riots dropped 30 points in the fourth quarter. Hart played all 16 minutes, finished with 12 points, four rebounds and five assists, made both of his threes and all four free throws, and buried the game-winning threeWatch highlight for a 71-69 win.

That shot did more than cut the series deficit to 2-1. It changed the standard.

The Riots never lost again.

Newark’s post-series film study had also produced a tactical answer. Ron said his staff believed too much of Carmelo Anthony’s regular-season damage came in transition or after broken defensive assignments rather than from New York consistently creating clean half-court looks for him. That was an owner film-study conclusion, not an official league statistic, but it shaped the adjustment: put Dyson Daniels on Melo, crowd his touches, keep the ball moving away from New York’s preferred scorer and force the Knicks to win through secondary creation.

Meanwhile, Newark stopped trying to be pretty.

Game 4 was the first full evidence. The Riots won 69-60 and controlled nearly every ugly category that had betrayed them earlier: 13-6 in steals, 24-12 in points off turnovers, 54-34 in the paint, 20-8 on the break and 9-for-10 at the line. Jaylen Brown and Dwight Howard scored 14 apiece. Instead of missing the easy stuff and asking the defense to save them, Newark finally made the Knicks pay for every loose possession.

The series was 2-2.

Game 5 was worse for New York.

Newark shot 34 percent in the first half and scored only 22 points, but instead of splintering, the Riots stayed organized. They scored 50 after halftime, won the fourth quarter 27-12 and turned the Garden into a turnover factory. Michael Ray Richardson finished with five steals, five assists and no turnovers. Newark assisted on 27 of 31 baskets, forced 18 Knicks turnovers and crushed New York 51-21 in bench scoring.

Three straight.

Then came the closeout.

The Knicks still had enough offense to make Game 6 uncomfortable. They shot efficiently and pushed late. But Newark was no longer the team from the first two games. Dwight Howard gave the Riots 15 points, seven rebounds and 7-for-8 shooting. Richardson added 10 points on a perfect 4-for-4 night with four steals. Bobby Portis Jr. scored 10 without a turnover. Kyrie Irving handed out six assists. Jalen Johnson did not need to score to own his minutes; Newark was plus-12 with him on the floor.

The team categories finished the argument: Newark won the free-throw scoring 9-1, steals 13-11, bench points 47-33, paint points 44-38 and second-chance points 7-0.

Riots 75. Knicks 68.

Series over.

The final aggregate was Newark 406, New York 381. The Riots lost the first two games by four combined points, then won the next four by 29 combined. They did it while Derik Queen missed the final four games with a strained right hip. They did it against Oliver’s No. 1 seed, an 11-5 Knicks team that had won Mini Crown I and entered the postseason with Carmelo at the center of the MVP conversation.

And they did it without one superstar carrying the entire reversal.

Hart was named Series MVP because the series changed when he changed the room. His final line — 37 points, 19 rebounds, 10 assists, three steals and plus-21 — does not look like a traditional superstar takeover. That is exactly the point. He supplied the competitive standard.

Richardson supplied the pressure: 28 points, 27 assists, 15 steals and plus-18, including defensive player of the game honors in Game 5 and Game 6. Brown supplied the scoring floor with a Newark-best 64 points and a plus-23 series mark. Howard remained the foundation inside and delivered the closeout game ball.

Newark spent the first two games proving it could play with the Knicks and still lose. The final four were about proving that close was no longer enough.

The Riots did not suddenly become perfect. They became accountable. They defended. They stopped wasting possessions. They made free throws. They finished at the rim. They trusted the dirty-work players. They listened to the film. And once Hart dragged the standard out of the locker room and onto the floor, everybody else followed.

The first two games were the old Newark story.

The next four rewrote it.

The Riots spent two games beating themselves. Then they spent four beating the Knicks.