NEW ORLEANS — Knicks coach David Fizdale brought an extra item onto this three-game road trip, and it will accompany the club on its voyages the rest of the season.
An autographed ax.
There it sat, leaning against a wall, in the visitor’s locker room Wednesday night in Oklahoma City and again at Thursday’s practice at Smoothie King Arena in New Orleans. The ax will be omnipresent the rest of this rocky journey that has the Knicks at 4-11 after 15 games.
“I promise I’m not going to kill anybody,’’ Fizdale said ahead of the Knicks matchup vs. the Pelicans. “That’s why I keep the rubber tip, in case someone wants to come after me over playing time.’’
The ax symbolizes everything Fizdale wants to accomplish, and he asked the players to put their autographs onto its long wooden handle with black sharpies a few days ago.
Let Fizdale, who learned at the foot of master motivator Pat Riley, explain what it means amid this season of development.
“My thing to these guys is what we’re trying to do is to try to chop down a big tree,’’ the coach said. “If you keep paying attention to if the tree is falling, you’re never going to get that tree down. We signed a covenant as a group. Every guy, ‘Hey let’s make a commitment to stick together and we keep chopping this tree together.’
“It’s just a symbol of us chopping a tree, putting in the work with the right attitude and right respect and not let things linger and keeping eye on the task.’’
It’s going to be taking down a redwood for the Knicks to make the playoffs this season without Kristaps Porzingis for the time being. The Knicks have lost in three straight blowouts by a combined 67 points, including the 128-103 fiasco Wednesday at Oklahoma City. The league’s youngest team has yet to beat a club over .500 and haven’t had a lead in the past 10 quarters.
“Every game is not going to be great, and [Wednesday] night wasn’t great,’’ Kevin Knox told The Post. “We didn’t compete at all, really. But we signed the ax for a reason — that every game won’t be perfect but the ax reminds us to bounce back the next game.’’
The ax concept came when one of the trainers shared a poignant quote with the team.
“When you’re a coach trying to motivate this group, I already had this thing about chopping a tree,’’ Fizdale said. “We had a quote, ‘If you give me six hours to chop a tree, I’m going to spend four of those hours sharpening my ax.’ I thought, ‘That’s a good idea. Let me get an ax.’ Coaches come up with stuff. Hopefully some of it clicks. As you can see we’re pretty together and connected.’’
Indeed, the Knicks were a loosey-goosey, loud group at practice’s end, during a 3-point-shooting contest. But the prior film session was dead serious after the club allowed OKC to run the ball down their throats.
“The biggest thing we got from the film is we didn’t compete at the level we expect from each other,’’ Fizdale said. “We always got to own that. We watched the truth.”
Fizdale said he has just two quotation placards hang around the Tarrytown training facility. One is Bernard King’s, “Once a Knick, Always a Knick.’’ The other is their core values: “Respect, Service and Competitors Only.”
“I want to build a professional lifestyle around them and built them into a kind of player that can ultimately win a championship one day,” Fizdale said. “I expected it to be a tough ride. These guys are going to go up and down mentally. I have to be the guy looking at the big picture.’’
And schlepping an ax around the country.