NEW YORK — Maximizing Karl-Anthony Towns’ offensive gifts was one of several reasons the Knicks moved on from Tom Thibodeau and hired Mike Brown as head coach. The vision: an up-tempo, motion-based attack built on spacing, cutting, and freedom — a system designed to make the game easier for one of the NBA’s most versatile scoring men.

But two days before the season opener against last year’s 64-win Cleveland Cavaliers, Towns admits he’s still trying to figure out how the new system lends itself to his skill set.

“Honestly, I don’t know, but we’re figuring it out. It’s just different,” Towns said Monday after practice in Tarrytown, N.Y., his response capturing the uncertainty of a player still adjusting to a brand-new system.

When asked where the team has succeeded most within Brown’s new offense, Towns’ answer spoke volumes.

“Just buy-in, just doing our best to make the system work for us,” he said. “And that’s really all we should be focused on everyday.”

Towns missed the Knicks’ final two preseason games with a minor quad issue, and his early returns before sitting were uneven. In three appearances, he shot 5 for 19 from the field and 0 for 5 from 3, scoring 27 points across 60 minutes. That’s an unusually low volume and percentage from deep for one of the best 3-point shooting bigs in the league.

The Knicks launched 129 total 3s in the games Towns played, yet the All-Star forward, who hit 42% from deep last season, accounted for less than 4% of those attempts. The sample size is small — Towns and the starters played only first halves in Abu Dhabi and three quarters against the Minnesota Timberwolves — but the limited volume highlights the adjustment period still ahead.

Brown insists that’s all part of the plan. His offense emphasizes versatility, allowing Towns to move between multiple roles within the same game.

“First thing is, it’s going to be a process, especially with him missing the last couple of games,” Brown said. “He’ll be in the strong corner, he’ll be in the weak corner, he can be the push man, or he can be the weak wing, and also he can be at the top of the key and in the dunker. That will help him, the movement.”

Brown’s system removes many traditional play calls in favor of a read-and-react structure — one that relies on spacing and quick decisions rather than scripted sets. The goal is to make the Knicks less predictable and harder to defend, particularly when it comes to how opponents prepare for Towns.

“We’re just getting right into our [offense], and it’s based off of where this player goes and where the ball goes, and everybody just kind of reads it from there with a couple of different options,” Brown explained. “So now, guys may not be able to sit on [KAT’s] actions quite as much, or if he is required to sprint to a ball screen, they may not know it’s coming, because he’s in a different spot when he’s about to set a ball screen.

“The one thing he has to do, the rest of the guys have to do, and especially me, make sure we have patience — because he’s missed some time, he’s missed some games, and he’s going to have to catch up a little bit.”

That patience will be key. Brown’s offensive system blurs positional lines, especially for stretch bigs like Towns and backup forward Guerschon Yabusele. In his scheme, because the four can also flow into the roles of the three, two, or even one, it demands an advanced understanding from those bigs of every spot on the floor.

“It’s all in the flow off the offense,” said team captain Jalen Brunson. “For them to go back and forth between the four and the five can be a little mind boggling sometimes, especially when it’s possession after possession. Maybe in a game where you are running the five for three or four minutes, and you are in a rhythm, and you are in the four for a certain stretch of time, you can get in a rhythm.

“But we’re going to continue to get better at it. It’s not just on them, it’s on us to put them in the right positions.”

For what it’s worth, Brown is confident Towns will be able to figure things out — even if his answer lacked confidence.

“He’s open and willing to do anything. Now, if he [was] stubborn or something like that, it’d be a little tough, but he’s not,” Brown said. “Everybody that we’ve coached, even the guys that we let go of, they embraced whatever we tried to do, and that made our job easier.”

The bigger challenge, Brown said, will be managing expectations — both his players’ and his own — as the team learns on the fly.

“The one thing you’re always worried about, especially with him being out these few games, when the lights come on Wednesday, everybody wants it right now. And so, I have to manage not just his frustration if it doesn’t work out the way he wants it to in this time, but everybody’s frustration,” Brown said. “It’s OK. We’re gonna get there. This is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. It doesn’t have to happen in Day 1.

“Now, that doesn’t excuse him or anybody else from playing hard, getting back in transition defense, boxing out, the things that they’ve been doing their whole career, not holding onto it for 15 seconds. There’s some little things that everybody knows what to do, that they have to do to be successful or win. But some of the things in terms of the nuances of the offense and even some things we’re doing defensively, I gotta have some patience with it and make sure that they do, too.”

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