Joy of working with Knicks rookie Tyler Kolek helped trainer push through addiction battle

In the span between his addiction and Tyler Kolek, Nick Correia’s relationship with basketball was “weird.” He didn’t trust himself.

The sport felt like a trigger to the drugs that once crippled Correia’s life.

But then, Correia started training Kolek, and the point guard’s underdog rise to NCAA stardom helped further push the dark times out of focus.

“Tyler was a zero-star recruit,” Correia told The Post. “He wasn’t ranked like that. He didn’t have all these high-end scholarship offers. He had to work for everything. And you can’t help when you watch a guy who is gritty like that — like, that’s the game to me, guys that play hard, that play selfless.

“I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, this is why I love this game.’ Tyler was the first time again where I didn’t want to miss a game, sitting on the edge of my seat, watching with emotion and passion.”

The Kolek-Correia partnership has been mutually beneficial.