LOS ANGELES — It’s been 412 days since the Lakers were a .500 team, a surprisingly long time for such a successful franchise.

There was a chance to end the drought on Sunday, but the push for .500 will have to wait. The Lakers lost to the New York Knicks, 112-108, as a modest three-game winning streak ended amid an offense that stalled after a solid week-long run.

The Western Conference is so incredibly jumbled that if the Lakers won, they’d have been in a three-way tie for seventh place. Instead, they fell into a four-way tie for ninth.

“We have time, but we can’t waste any more time,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “We can’t waste any more games.”

Anthony Davis blamed himself for the loss, as he is known to do if his personal expectations aren’t met.

He had an unremarkable scoring night with 17 points a mere two days after totaling only eight against Toronto. The two-game respite came after Davis uncorked a steady stream of dominant games with 39, 38 and 30 points.

“I played terrible,” Davis said Sunday. “Couldn’t find my shot — free throws, lay-ups, everything. The guys did their job. I didn’t do my job tonight.”

Teammate Dennis Schroder disagreed.“That’s not on him. That’s on all of us as a team,” he said.

The Lakers (33-35) made a wild run after trailing by 10 on RJ Barrett’s basket with 2:34 to play at Crypto.com Arena. Schroder’s lay-up brought the Lakers within two with 19.1 seconds left, but the Lakers couldn’t foul quickly enough while the Knicks played keep-away with the ball via six passes to open teammates.

The Lakers finally fouled Josh Hart with five seconds left. He made both free throws to extend the Knicks’ lead to a formidable four points.

“We had guys scrambling, trapping, all that,” Ham said. “You try to force a turnover if you can and then foul. Just so happens they spread us out… Just was unfortunate we weren’t able to get a foul in a timely fashion.”

The Lakers come into the game as the highest-scoring team in the fourth quarter this season, averaging almost 30 points in the final 12 minutes. On Sunday, they scored only 22 in the fourth.

The Lakers were also bad from the free-throw line. They were a perfect 19 for 19 from the stripe two days earlier against Toronto but only 10 of 17 for 59% against New York. Davis made only one of five from the line.

Former Lakers draft pick Julius Randle scored 33 points for the Knicks, who also picked up 30 points from Barrett and improved to 40-30.

Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell was impressive with a season-high 33 points, including six three-pointers. It wasn’t enough to prevent the Lakers from hitting the .500 mark for the first time since Jan. 25 of last year, when they were 24-24.

“That one hurt for us,” a subdued Russell said Sunday. “We were battling, trying to do everything we could.”

LeBron James didn’t play Sunday, missing a seventh game because of an injured ankle tendon. The Knicks were also short-handed, going without guard Jalen Brunson because of a foot injury.

The Lakers’ next game is a big one. They play at New Orleans on Tuesday, facing one of the teams they’re currently tied with in the standings.