Michael Rapaport is hoping his documentary won’t be telling the story of the Knicks’ only championships.

In the meantime, those title-winning glory days serve as the inspiration for the actor/director/diehard Knicks fan’s film “When the Garden was Eden,” which will air as part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series next Tuesday night.

“Being a Knicks fan for my whole life and going through the highs and lows and lows and really lows, I just started to realize just how hard it was to win a championship and afraid that we were going to get into a Red Sox or Cubs situation where you just hope they win before you die,” Rapaport said. “Those personal feelings about the Knicks and the book [by Harvey Araton] were the reason I wanted to do the film.”

The documentary chronicles the building of the Knicks as they went from perennial punching bag in the early 1960s to a two-time NBA champion a decade later. It includes interviews with most of the key players in that Knicks run including Willis Reed, Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dean Meminger and Phil Jackson.

The interview with Jackson occurred shortly before he decided to take over as president of the Knicks in March.

“I am starting to think my interview spurred the idea for him to come back,” Rapaport joked. “I said, ‘Holy s—, I am the reason Phil Jackson came back to the Knicks.’”

When Jackson was hired, Rapaport had to rework the film, including the opening scene, which was originally a voiceover reading of a poem by Dick Barnett. It turned into an aerial shot of Madison Square Garden with audio of radio callers griping about the state of last season’s Knicks.

“This was a way to bring it full circle,” Rapaport said. “This is where we are now and then bring it back to history and then back to where we are now with some hope at the end. When we originally finished the movie, Phil hadn’t been hired.

“We pretty much had a locked movie and then Phil came into the picture six weeks later. At first, as a filmmaker, I wanted to ignore it because once you change something, it’s like a house of cards because everything else is affected by it. And it turned to what I think is a great thing for the team and an even greater thing for the movie because you couldn’t have written a better ending.”

Rapaport’s directing ability was known by ESPN after he did a documentary about the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest. He was originally going to do a 30 for 30 entry on former NBA guard Chris Jackson, who converted to Islam and changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.

But that project fell through, and “Entourage” creator Doug Ellin helped put the two sides back together for this one.

The film captures what the Knicks meant to a basketball-crazed New York City: turning the Garden from a gambler’s haven to the Mecca of the sport.

“Even though all these guys have had great lives and great careers, when you are talking to them and you’re asking them about their youth, they get so excited because they are recounting the time of their lives,” Rapaport said.

“I feel like all these guys, Phil, Bill Bradley, they’ve all done things in their life out of the Knicks, but that time and that team was the most special thing or one of the most special things in their lives. These guys are in their 60s and 70s and they are talking to me like little kids. So it was fun and special, and I felt privileged to be able to tell the story.”

The “True Romance” star also got to introduce the film to the current Knicks team during its training camp at West Point.

“It was one of the most exciting moments in my life professionally,” Rapaport said. “To have dinner and introduce the film with the team and the staff … I couldn’t believe I was doing it. Especially with Phil Jackson taking over and this team aspires to be like those teams. It was surreal for me, it was a trip. They were laughing, oohing and aahing. They couldn’t be any better, I was totally nerve-wracked.”