Josh Hart is out for the first time this season.

The Knicks ruled their starting forward and glue guy out with right ankle soreness for Wednesday’s matchup against the Chicago Bulls. His presence on the injury report comes at a moment when the Knicks are still trying to fix their offense.

“Josh is a connector. He’s a guy that just goes and make plays. I don’t think we call a single play for him at any time, he just goes and gets it done,” head coach Mike Brown said ahead of tipoff on Wednesday. “He rebounds. Our pick and roll defense has been bad, and he’s helped clean it up at times by putting him on the ball. So his versatility defensively is a bonus for us. So he’s definitely going to be missed.”

The Knicks started Landry Shamet in Hart’s place against the Bulls.

Hart was listed as questionable Tuesday with right ankle soreness and was ruled out Wednesday afternoon. He started all seven games to open the season, and the Knicks are 3-4 in them.

It is not the first time this ankle has cost him time.

Hart missed the Oct. 15 preseason finale in Toronto with a sore right ankle. Last season he sprained the same ankle on Christmas Day against Cleveland, when he stepped on Dean Wade’s foot and missed eight straight games.

The Knicks went 3-5 in that stretch. He sat out again Jan. 17 against Phoenix with right ankle soreness.

Hart joked about the sprain on a podcast in January.

“If this is my left ankle, I’m back by now,” Hart said. “I won’t have any ligaments to sprain.”

Hart is averaging 8.6 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists in 31.7 minutes and is plus-37 so far this season, according to data from Basketball-Reference. Two-thirds of his shots are 3-pointers, up from about 41% last season. His two best plus-minus nights this season were wins: plus-19 against the Detroit Pistons and plus-22 against the Brooklyn Nets.

The Knicks were 44-22 with him last season and 9-7 without him.

After the Nets game, Hart was asked whether a strong fourth quarter washed away the Knicks’ issues. He said it did not.

“No. No, the issues are still there,” Hart said. “I think defensively, we were solid. … But our offense has to get in a better flow, and that’s kind of what’s holding us back right now.”

He had described what changed in the fourth quarter.

“We finally played fast, got stops,” Hart said. “We’ve been playing very slow, very stagnant.”

Hart is also playing out the third year of the four-year, $80.9 million extension he signed in August 2023. He makes $20.9 million this season, and the Knicks hold a $22.4 million team option for 2027-28. The Knicks said Oct. 9 they were tabling extension talks until later in the season.

Hart said at media day that the timeline matters.

“We know it’s a business and we know if some of these things aren’t figured out by February, it might be a different conversation,” Hart said.

On Oct. 10, he was asked whether the wait frustrated him.

“No, because at the end of the day, I’m still under contract in New York,” Hart said. “We have a hell of a team that’s going to try and repeat.”