NBA

How Jeff Hornacek can get most out of Knicks’ ‘limited talent’

Hubie Brown says the Knicks may need more than just a solid head coach to turn around their fortunes next season.

Brown, ESPN Radio analyst who will work the NBA Finals, believes the surprising hiring of Hornacek will bring “accountability” and a potentially more exciting offense to the Knicks. But the club needs roster upgrades following a 32-50 season — third-worst in the East.

The Knicks will officially name Hornacek their new head coach this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday, with a press conference likely Friday.

“The hiring of anybody taking over a bad team that has limited talent and needs definite additions at key positions, you have to be lucky and fortunate that the players who are there can buy into the system and give it 100 [percent] every single night,’’ Brown told The Post over the weekend at the Western Conference Finals in Oklahoma City. “I would expect he comes in and gets that. I know they’ll be more accountable. That’s key anytime you come into a bad situation. You’re not going anywhere without accountability.’’

Brown, the ex-Knicks coach, likes the slow coaching path Hornacek traveled. The Iowa State graduate put off NBA coaching after his 2000 retirement as a Jazz shooting guard, wanting to spend time with his children. Hornacek still dabbled unofficially, helping coach their high school team in Salt Lake City, according to Brown. It wasn’t until 2007 when Hornacek rejoined the NBA as a Jazz part-time shooting coach. In 2011, he became a full-time assistant with Utah and was named the Suns’ head coach in 2013.

“He was a very cerebral player — one of the best,’’ Brown said. “He prepared himself as a shooting coach and assistant coach and when he got his opportunity, he turned around a bad franchise [in Phoenix] and won 48 games playing an exciting style of basketball. That’s how you do it — proving you can communicate with the player of today and show results with the teaching. He did that every place. Basketball IQ, he’s right there.

“Next thing, he’s a fantastic person and excellent communicator, so you know he’s going to be able to relate. Now, it’s going to come down to what’s the talent base? Can the talent base answer the style of play they want to play?”

Sources indicate Knicks president Phil Jackson wants to still use the triangle, but update it with Hornacek’s ideas. Hornacek’s Suns played an up-tempo style.

“I don’t know what they talked about in their meeting,’’ said Brown. “Who am I to say they’re going to play one way? But he’s got a style. He’s upbeat. Not only did he have an excellent fast-break game [in Phoenix], they had the secondary breaks. You don’t see a lot of that today where in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, it was prevalent.

“He’s played for Cotton [Fitzsimmons], on great teams in Phoenix that played fast-break basketball with terrific secondary breaks and organization and then excellent half-court sets when the game slowed. I expect him to do exactly that with the Knicks. What type of set plays, whether they run part of the triangle or the triangle, or whether it’s different sets he had success with in Phoenix as a coach and player, that’s difficult to answer.’’

Hornacek never got to finish his third season in Phoenix, fired in February with a 14-35 record (101-112 overall). Brown said Hornacek was a “sacrificial lamb.’’

“After two years of success, they made some very bad mistakes — either not re-signing key players [Goran] Dragic, moving [Isaiah] Thomas to Boston — then look at the playoffs this year and both are star players,’’ Brown said. “Then [Marcus] Morris to Detroit [where] he’s a starter and what do you get in return? Plus their two best players [Eric] Bledsoe and [Brandon] Knight both got hurt [this season]. The team gets off to a bad start. Unfortunately he was the sacrificial lamb. In my opinion, I thought he did a very good job.

“I thought in his first two years, when he had his nucleus, he was having them play great basketball in a conference where you had six teams winning 50 games so that was very difficult.’’