If you know your Knicks history you know that the biggest moments are those born of adversity.

The first title is not nearly as revered for the heroic performance by Walt Frazier as it is for what set it up, Willis Reed going down in Game 5 of the 1970 NBA Finals and an undersized crew pulling out that game and then Reed limping out of the tunnel in Game 7.

Sometimes it doesn’t end up with a win, but it’s just as memorable. In 1997 the championship hopes were spoiled as Charlie Ward and P.J. Brown got in a fight in the Eastern Conference semifinals and the toes of Patrick Ewing and too many teammates  stepped off the bench and onto the court. That cost the Knicks crushing suspensions and Madison Square Garden rocked with “Nine men, one mission,” but still fell short.

Thursday night's Game 3 against the Pistons at Little Caesars Arena, there were no major injuries and no bench-clearing brawls. But there were surely moments that tested the resolve of the franchise, from the top tiers of the front office to the too-hot-than-it-should-be seat of coach Tom Thibodeau to the players who were being judged. You can count the amount of men on this mission and they surely had plenty to overcome.

It’s certainly too early to judge what comes next in the summer for the Knicks with this first-round series still only halfway resolved and the Boston Celtics likely waiting on the other side. But it’s not unreasonable to believe that the Knicks took the floor in the noisy arena with doubts if they were up to the task of managing the environment.

Thibodeau's game plan was under attack. Karl-Anthony Towns was questioned, as well as the decision-makers who pulled the trigger on the rebuild of the roster in the summer. The toughness of the team was suspect and memories of last season’s hard-nosed squad danced in the heads of fans.

But adversity is the test. And on this night the Knicks passed.

“We’re not surprised,” Josh Hart said. “I feel like we’ve been that team all year in terms of responding and bouncing back after losses.”

"It’s playoff basketball,” Thibodeau said. “We have guys that have been in a lot of big games. We’ve been a good road team all year so I think we know what goes into winning. And then we had disappointment from the loss in Game 2. I thought the readiness to play was very good.”

Maybe that shouldn’t have been doubted, but after Game 2 it was understandable. The Knicks were bullied on their home court and now they were facing a team — really, an entire city — that hadn’t seen a home postseason victory in 17 years and was unleashing all of that frustration on the team in the way of that celebration.

From the opening sounds, the game operations crew playing "The Final Countdown" for introductions as they did in the Bad Boys Pistons days, to the inadvertent (perhaps) horn that blew and gave Detroit one more chance, the Knicks faced a challenge that would test them.

Thibodeau changed up strategies, configuring offensive schemes to get Towns involved early. Towns, in turn, not only delivered 31 points but pushes and shoves — and smiles while doing so — to let the Pistons know he would not be intimidated. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges took turns on Cade Cunningham, limiting the Pistons’ young star as best they could. And Jalen Brunson ignored the chants and delivered in the end, befitting the Clutch Player of the Year award he’d gotten a night earlier.

There is much still to be done. Game 4 Sunday afternoon could be the real stand the Knicks need to make, a chance to take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series and then close it out at home on Tuesday. Let the series stretch out and that only makes the next task — the one maybe no one outside their locker room believes they are up to — a possible Eastern Conference semifinals matchup with the Celtics, even more difficult.

It may be there that the Knicks' decisions are finally made, whether they have done enough to convince the powers that be that the coach and the players deemed not tough enough are worth building around.

“The playoffs are definitely important and it’s definitely great to get a win regardless of where or what the circumstances are,” Brunson said. “But it’s great. It’s something that we’re proud of and tomorrow we focus on Game 4. So we’ve got to have short-term memory whether we win or lose, we’ve got to have short-term memory.”