Josh Hart wants to see the New York Knicks claw their way back against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night.

Often the Knicks’ jovial beacon, Hart kept things blunt in the wake of Tuesday’s 111-94 defeat to the Houston Rockets, raising the stakes for an immediate return to action in Memphis (8 p.m. ET, MSG).

“I just think we’re not going in the right direction,” Hart said, per Garrett Epstein of SNY. “We’re not trending upwards. So, we’ve got to figure it out. It was three tough ones. We’ve got another one tomorrow. That’s a must-win for us, and build from there.”

“That effort, the attention to detail, the discipline was pretty embarrassing … We’ve got to figure it out, make sure we’re all locked in mentally to get where we want to go and, like I said, build on that.”

Tuesday marked the Knicks’ third consecutive defeat after a seven-game winning streak. Each of the three defeats have come against teams that will engage in some sort of defeat while the recent wins were stacked against strugglers.

“We’re obviously struggling right now to win games,” Hart continued, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “Struggling to start games off, struggling to focus on the attention to detail, struggling to get outside of ourselves and focus on what the betterment of the team is. So [Wednesday] we have to play with a sense of desperation. Sense of being willing to sacrifice. To win.”

The Knicks (48-28) respectably held their own against the league-leading/defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night but held only a 1-0 lead in Houston before things went awry. The Kevin Durant-led Rockets would score 14 consecutive points to take a permanent lead and the Knicks got no closer than four the rest of the way.

“I thought we made strides against Oklahoma City,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown noted in his own postgame statements, per James Edwards III of The Athletic. “Tonight, everything was just real easy for (Houston), especially in the pick-and-roll. They didn’t feel us at all.”

This dire streak began with a loss to the streaking Charlotte Hornets last Thursday. The Knicks have not beaten a team with a winning record since March 6, when they laid down a 142-103 shellacking on the Denver Nuggets. That would hint at dangerous trends for any playoff-bound team, much less one burdened with championship aspirations like those placed on the Knicks.

There’s one more prime opportunity for the Knicks to make things right before the playoffs tip off: the last stretch of six begins on Wednesday against eliminated Memphis before the equally-woebegone Chicago Bulls visit Madison Square Garden on Friday.

The regular season then closes with four games against potential postseason foes, beginning with a Monday visit to Atlanta. Boston, Toronto, and Charlotte all visit MSG to finish things out.

Tuesday’s loss eliminated the faint hope of the Knicks catching Detroit for the Eastern Conference regular season title and they’re 2.5 games behind Boston for second place. They’re likely locked into a top four slot but are only one game ahead of No. 4 Cleveland entering Wednesday play.

“The last few games, we haven’t had it,” Brown noted, per Epstein. “Teams go through stretches like that. We’ve got (six) more games to try to find it.”