Brandon thinks Garden is land of confusion

WASHINGTON — For Brandon Jennings, playing for the Knicks was a dream seven years in the making, ever since they passed on him in the draft for Jordan Hill.

It started off as well as he could’ve hoped. In Jennings’ first home preseason game, he heard the Garden fans chanting his name, already dubbed a ‘crowd favorite’ by Jeff Hornacek. Around the quarter pole of the season, the Knicks were third in the Eastern Conference and Jennings was being pushed as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate.

But then, like most everything involved with the Knicks these days, a dream dissolved amid losing, confusion and, of course, the triangle.

“It was just too much going on behind the scenes that I didn’t understand,” Jennings told the Daily News, less than a month after he was waived by the Knicks and signed with the Wizards.

Jennings, who originally signed a one-year, $5 million deal to serve as Derrick Rose’s backup over the summer, wasn’t carrying a grudge in his candid comments Wednesday to The News. He was happy with the way the Knicks handled his desire to relocate to a playoff team, having received a send-off text message from Phil Jackson relaying a ‘thank you’ and that contending teams were interested in him.

But Jennings expected much more out of himself and the season. Plus, there was an offense that countered his preferred style of play (Jennings wanted to push the pace and freestyle, while the triangle, which was re-emphasized by the Knicks just before Jennings was waived, slowed everything down).

“I think what just happened was they were just going in a different direction. I wanted to play fast. I didn’t really understand the triangle,” Jennings said. “I think that was my biggest thing. I really didn’t understand it. I’m not saying it doesn’t work. I just felt like the way the game is being played today, I just felt like you got to score. You got to score. You got to get up shots. When I came to New York, I wanted to put on a show every night. I wanted to put up shots with nice passes and things like that. So I guess it just wasn’t the right timing.”

There were other issues. Jennings, piggybacking off what Kristaps Porzingis said about a week earlier, indicated that practices were muddied by confusion and inconsistency. At different points in the season, the Knicks went from playing fast to pick and rolls to isolations to the triangle. The lack of continuity extended to the defense.

“It was just different. Every day it was just something different,” Jennings said. “It was just like, if we could just stick to what we could do, we’ll be fine. So at times, you’d just come into practice and you didn’t know what was going on.”

In his 58 games with the Knicks, Jennings averaged 8.6 points and a team-high 4.9 assists. He developed a strong chemistry with Kristaps Porzingis, assisting on 50 of the Latvian’s buckets despite their limited time on the court together. He wanted more time on the court with Rose, believing their flashes in the backcourt together — specifically when they combined for 53 points in a loss to Houston on New Year’s Eve — should’ve been rewarded with more opportunities.

But overall, the ball movement was so poor with the Knicks that Jennings noticed the difference immediately after joining the Wizards. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Knicks didn’t play well when Jennings was paired with Carmelo Anthony, getting outscored by 110 points over 736 minutes. Heading into Wednesday’s game against the Jazz, the Knicks carried an assist percentage of 60.5 when Anthony was off the court. When he was on the court? 52 percent.

“Anybody who is watching the game, you know if you’re watching the game. When the ball got to the pinch post it was never. …,” Jennings said, speaking in general terms. “You got Derrick Rose, who can score, who can do things. You have (Porzingis). Guys could never really find their shots or find their rhythm. So it was like, something’s wrong with that. You have Derrick Rose, who can get to the rim with ease and score. But even he was out there lost. That’s how I looked at it. I looked at it that he didn’t know what was going on. KP, he was trying to come into his second year trying to find himself, and he couldn’t really find a rhythm either. So it’s definitely difficult.”

To be clear, Jennings didn’t call out Anthony or any specific player. He was speaking in general terms about New York’s selfish play. But Jennings was clear about who the Knicks should focus on moving forward — young big men Porzingis and Willy Hernangomez.

“That’s who they should build a team around, those two,” Jennings said. “That’s just my personal opinion because they’re very young, they’re very good. I mean, Willy, in a couple years, he’s going to be probably one of the best big men. He reminds me of Marc Gasol.”