There was a lot of disgust kicking its way around the city Thursday afternoon, darting in and out of the snow drifts, ducking into lunchtime cafeterias and happy-hour saloons. Much of it centered around the Knicks, who know no bounds when it comes to providing outlets for that disenchantment.

There was disappointment, too, much of it fastened to Charles Oakley. We may never know exactly what happened during the four eventful minutes when Oakley was inside Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, but what we did see, what anyone inside the Garden could see, was a tall, angry man violently shoving a security man who was simply trying to do his job.

Bad optics there. Even Oakley admitted as much.

There are two prevailing problems when it comes to the larger issue of the Knicks, though, one of which was on display even as Wednesday’s sad passion play was running its course, one that surfaced Thursday.

The latter one helps explain why even Knicks fans who are otherwise reasonable and rational in their thought processes cannot be when it comes to their team; why they found themselves cheering for Oakley in their hearts even if their brains told them they shouldn’t; why there are few, if any, circumstances where the man who runs the team, James Dolan, will ever get the benefit of the doubt.

That was best exemplified by the statement the Knicks released Thursday in which they doubled down in their resolve to win a scorched-earth PR battle with Oakley, claiming his account of the night was “pure fiction,” citing “dozens” of witnesses who will back up their version of things.

The Knicks knew, because the dumbest person on the planet would know, this would only inflame this situation and turn Oakley into even more of an unwarranted martyr. The Knicks knew, because the dumbest person on the planet would know, the smart play Thursday was to simply let the fiasco burn itself out, like a rogue meteor. There is only one problem with that.

The Knicks don’t care. Dolan doesn’t care. If it isn’t clear by now that Dolan isn’t like most people who, all things being equal, would prefer not to have millions of people detest them, then it never will be. We can speculate why this is. But it is. Dolan doesn’t care. And so the Knicks don’t care. And so we have this … debacle.

Which leads us to the other issue which helps perpetuate the problems that have befallen the Knicks, and will continue to, both of which were on full display during Wednesday’s loss to the Clippers. Look at the last item in the boxscore; this is how it reads: 19,812 (19,812). As in: seats filled (available seats). It’s the way every Knicks boxscore ends, regardless of whatever ugliness is represented in the lines leading up to it. It’s what’s known as a happy ending at the box office.

That was better exemplified by the way the Garden sounded in the final stages of the game, specifically when Derrick Rose fed Kristaps Porzingis with a nifty bounce pass with 90 seconds to go and Porzingis slammed the ball home emphatically, his 26th and 27th points of the night, which gave the Knicks a 113-111 lead.

The Knicks were nine games under .500, minutes away from going 10 games under, yet it was impossible to know, impossible to tell. It isn’t just that the Garden sells out, you see. But the people who come … they still bleed. They still ache. They still yearn. They still care.

Periodically you’ll hear from these truest of the true believers, and they’ll always insist they’ve had it, they’re done. They sound like so many of the baseball fans who swore the ’94 strike killed them off for good. But with a difference: some of those baseball fans, they really did stay away. Still stay away.

Knicks fans always come back. Maybe it’s the sport — basketball is a hard jones to shake once you’ve bought in all the way. Maybe it’s the city — New York’s romance with basketball goes back a hundred years, and is more deeply rooted than any other. Maybe it’s the memories — big basketball nights at the Garden have a way of planting themselves in your soul in ways even the biggest baseball moments can’t.

Either way the reality is this: There is no consequence for lousy basketball, and none for petty behavior. The Knicks are an eternal ATM machine. And it’s funny: there was a group that had finally grown the stomach for real protest a few years ago … and it was at exactly that time Dolan hired Phil Jackson.

And it makes you wonder, especially given the Knicks’ never-ending daily dalliances with disgust:

Do they still have their signs and their slogans stored away in their basements somewhere?

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