Why Knicks aren’t playing their best lineup, which includes Immanuel Quickley,

OKLAHOMA CITY — Until late Wednesday night, Immanuel Quickley trekked through life unaware that he was part of a wrecking crew. Once he learned it, a man who studies the game obsessively couldn’t quite put into words why he and three other New York Knicks eviscerate opponents whenever they play together.

When Quickley, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Julius Randle share the floor — whether that fifth guy is Isaiah Hartenstein or Mitchell Robinson — the Knicks vaporize whoever stands in front of them. Yet, following Wednesday’s 129-120 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Quickley couldn’t quite explain the dynamic.

“Maybe we just have good chemistry. I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe, we just connect. I don’t know. Good basketball players on the floor playing hard.”

But the news to those other than Quickley following the defeat, which dropped the Knicks to 17-13, wasn’t that New York may have a death lineup. Instead, head coach Tom Thibodeau chose to go away from it.

At times, deviating from the fearsome foursome has worked, such as on Monday, when Thibodeau subbed RJ Barrett in for Quickley with three and a half minutes to go in regulation, a controversial move, considering Quickley was firing flames from his fingertips — 20 points in 22 minutes on 7-of-10 shooting. Thibodeau justified the switch after the game, disclosing that he sent Barrett back in because of the 23-year-old’s length. And on that day, it worked.

Barrett, who was already in the midst of his best performance in a couple of weeks, played a strong defensive final few minutes, and the Knicks downed one of the league’s best squads, the Milwaukee Bucks. But when a nearly identical scenario played out two days later, the results were far from equivalent.

With 4 minutes to go in the loss to the Thunder and the Knicks down seven, Thibodeau once again pulled Quickley, who was once again on a scoring binge: once again 7 of 10 with 22 points this time in 25 minutes. And once again after the game, Thibodeau said that Barrett gave the defense more length, which helped in this case because the Knicks were switching more than they usually do against Oklahoma City’s abundance of wings.

It was as if the basketball gods had placed us all into a simulation.

But on Wednesday, whether because of Barrett’s presence or not, the Knicks cratered upon the exit of Quickley. A sloppy inbounds pass and a clanked open 3 — both from Barrett, who was 0 of 6 from there at that point — did not help the cause. The Knicks lost. And 30 games into the season, it’s fair to wonder, is it time to give their best lineup more burn?

The numbers, if Quickley knew them, might shock him.

The Knicks outscore opponents by 26.5 points per 100 possessions this season when Brunson, Quickley, Hart and Randle share the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass. The defense is elite. The offense turns into the Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors if they had invented a time machine and…