This is Catching Strays, the Daily News’ regular Knicks rundown for the quotes, stats and storylines that didn’t make a headline.

Today: Grizzlies guard Ty Jerome’s is officially wilding, Mike Brown “a little excited” about the struggles, the Knicks’ backup point guard carousel, and Jordan Clarkson’s “ultimate pro” role.

Ty Jerome is wilding

The Memphis Grizzlies lost for the first time this season, 135-134, in overtime to the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday. But this Catching Strays item isn’t about the Grizzlies.

It’s about Ty Jerome.

Ty Jerome is officially wilding.

Allow me to explain.

The unassuming, 6-5 Jerome scored 40 points on 14-of-22 shooting and 5-of-6 from 3-point range in the loss to the Pelicans. He scored nine straight points in the final 1:43 of regulation to force overtime, then missed a 15-footer at the buzzer.

It wasn’t even his best game of the young season: Jerome scored a career-high 45 in the opener against the Utah Jazz while missing only eight shots. He had 28 points on 50% shooting in a win at Golden State and 31 with six assists in a win at Sacramento.

The Jazz and Kings, it’s fair to note, are both 1-6. Anyone can do this to losing teams, one might surmise. Perhaps “wilding” is a tad bit of an overstatement.

“Tweaking” might fit better for the herky-jerky style the Grizzlies guard uses to shake defenders out of their sneakers. Jerome is basketball’s Harry Houdini. Now you see him, now you don’t, over and over until the ball finds the bottom of the net.

Last season, Jerome averaged a career-high 19.7 points in 15 games, up from 12.5 the year before in Cleveland. Through six games this season, he’s averaging 28.2 points, with two 40-point games. He’s the betting favorite for Most Improved Player of the Year, and the calendar just flipped to November.

The best part? Jerome has the kind of game that would make your local YMCA proud: He’ll pump-fake, step through or pull up from deep, leaving your best defender in deep frustration.

Ty Jerome is like that. He’s officially wilding. He’s tweaking. Or maybe, just maybe, he is him.

‘A little excited’

The Knicks are 3-4 after beating the Nets, and Mike Brown talked Tuesday about the first seven games.

“I’m a little excited that we’re struggling,” he told reporters after practice on Tuesday. “I want to see if we can right now figure it out.”

Jalen Brunson said Tuesday that this season is a new test for the Knicks and not a repeat of last year’s run.

“I guess you can say it’s the things we worked for. We worked really hard to obviously do what we did last year. This is just a new test for us,” Brunson said after practice. “Regardless of if teams are circling us or not, we gotta go out there and, regardless of that team’s mentality or not, have the right mentality that we have and string some wins together and just get back to who we are.

“A lot of the things that we see on film and stuff are controllables. We’ll get back to it, we’re working every single day. This is a new journey, this is not last year, this is a totally different year. It’s a new journey for us.”

Backups in order

Jose Alvarado returned Monday after missing four straight games with an ankle sprain. He played 8:43 in the 103-90 win over Brooklyn and went scoreless, missing his only shot, a 3-pointer. He finished with no rebounds, no assists, one block and a minus-3.

Before the game, Brown said he had sat both point guards down to talk about their roles. After the game, the coach said the situation called for a role reversal.

“I thought Tyler’s minutes were tremendous,” said Brown. “He did a fantastic job running the team, getting us some easy looks, and then he was solid defensively.”

Kolek was asked what it said that his coach turned to him.

“It shows his confidence in every guy on this roster,” he said. “As he’s showing, he’ll be throwing the guy in at any time to be the spark. I happen to be one of those guys.”

‘Ultimate pro’

Jordan Clarkson played just under 11 minutes and scored seven points on 3-of-5 shooting on Monday. The Knicks were plus-17 with him on the floor.

Brown was asked Monday whether Clarkson’s minutes are set or played by feel.

“He’s willing to accept the role that most guys wouldn’t accept, even guys younger, and they haven’t proved as much as he’s proven in this league,” Mike Brown said. “That’s the ultimate team player.”

Clarkson responded Tuesday to Brown’s praise.

“That’s a great compliment, especially he’s been around a lot of guys, a lot of players and been on great teams,” he told reporters.” But I’m just here trying to support the group. We’re here for one goal and that’s to win.”

Josh Hart said Monday that Clarkson could be doing more somewhere else.

“He’s someone that if he was on a different team, he could play 20, 25 minutes every night,” he said. “He could score double digits, be that spark and microwave off the bench. He was willing to sacrifice and take a smaller role, be a part of something bigger than himself.”