Hornacek’s crew master the art of cutting it close

The Knicks are becoming masters of the cliffhanger.

Their past six victories (in a 7-3 stretch) have come by a total of 25 points — and in one of the games, they won by 10. But the Knicks still prefer blowouts.

“Obviously, with every game we gain more confidence that we can win these games. But looking back, we see how many things we can do better and how we can make it eas- ier for ourselves,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “We made it hard for ourselves the last couple of games, but still won because of the type of talent that we have.”

And the victories bring things beyond improvement in the standings.

“Momentum and confidence and really figuring out who we are as a team and how we’re going to win certain games,” Carmelo Anthony said.

Joakim Noah, who sat out the past two games left ankle sprain, seemingly is set to return to face the Kings on Sunday at the Garden, but the outlook is not as certain for Courtney Lee. Lee missed Friday’s game, also with a left ankle sprain.

“[I] feel good. Worked out today so, making progress,” said Lee who, like Noah, officially was listed as questionable. “So work out tomorrow and see how I feel. … If I had to answer I’d say I’m going to take it a day at a time. I’m going to see how it feels tomorrow after I work out and then go from there.”

Lee did not fully practice, insisted he felt good, but “was a little sore” as expected.

“A lot of guys when you sprain an ankle, moving backwards and forwards is fine, but when they really have to slide their feet sideways, that’s when that ankle turns and that’s when it gets him,” coach Jeff Hornacek said of Lee. “He’s a guy that’s very bouncy in step. For him, when his ankle’s sore, it’s hard for him to bounce like that and it has an effect.”

Lance Thomas, who missed nine games with a sore left ankle, returned for three minutes Friday.

“It was good to see, he looked good,” Hornacek said. “The biggest thing is when he’s hobbling, he’s going to be ineffective. But he didn’t look that way. So we’re trying to get him slowly acclimated, he’s been out a long time, so it’s good to see that it didn’t really look like it had an effect on him.”