Moments after Royce O’Neale had hit another game-winning shot, this time against the defending champion Warriors in San Francisco, Nic Claxton was asked about his teammate. His reply was unintentionally comedic, but everybody who heard it understood implicitly.

“He’s got big balls,” Claxton said of a teammate who has made a string of clutch plays for the Nets this season. “He steps up in crunch time.”

The praise was more about O’Neale’s clutch gene than any other body part. It’s a winning DNA and central to the glue-guy game the Nets traded for this past offseason. It has turned out to be one of the shrewder deals of the summer.

If availability is one of the most important abilities, O’Neale has brought underrated gifts to Brooklyn. He’s logged by far the most total minutes on the team — and behind only Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving on a per-game basis — having made himself too invaluable for Jacque Vaughn to take off the floor.

“It’s the total confidence that he gives you, the effort and the care factor that he has on a nightly basis … going over the scouting report and looking to see who he might guard that night,” Vaughn said. “His teammates get a chance to see him be extremely professional. Whether it’s the conversations that I have with him on an off day about how our group is, what’s important, how can we get better.

“To see the concern that he has of doing his part as a teammate, that goes a long ways when there’s been nights where maybe he didn’t have a great shooting night but he’s still finished the game for us. Or he’s in a position where he’s able to shoot a crucial 3 because he’s in the game. At the end of the day, the trust that he’s garnered amongst the coaching staff, his teammates, [is] because he shows up every single day.”

Every day, every practice and every game. And nearly every minute of those games.

O’Neale — despite clearly being tired at times — comes into Saturday’s tilt vs. the Knicks having played 1,563 minutes in 45 games. No other Net is even within 150 minutes of that total, with Durant the next-closest at 1,402.

“[He’s] a guy that you trust at the end of the game, who’ll take the right shot, who’ll make the right decision at the end of the game, who doesn’t mind playing on both ends of the floor,” Vaughn said. “He has the trust of his coaching staff, his teammates and he’s in the right spot.”

While O’Neale’s arrival in an offseason trade may have flown under the radar to many but the most ardent NBA observers, his reliability hasn’t come as a surprise. A 3-and-D guy who shows up every night, he made 69 appearances as a rookie and has played at least 70 games in the four years since. He’s well on his way to that again.

“He just comes in every day, just works, plays his role, doesn’t have a huge ego,” Claxton said. “He just wants to come out and play basketball at a high level and win basketball games. It’s always good to have glue guys like that on the roster who can bring that every single night.”

Since the start of the 2017-18 campaign, he’s missed just 23 games, only three with the Nets this season. For a Brooklyn team that has been hamstrung and undercut by injuries and absences the past few years, and entered the season with five players coming off surgeries of some kind, the value of that can’t be overstated.

“Yeah, just every day, every game, taking care of myself, making sure I’m able to compete and just accepting [Vaughn] having the trust and leaving me out there and playing me as much as I can, as long as he wants,” O’Neale told The Post of his approach. “Longevity and being healthy is a big key, so just doing whatever I have to do for this team.”

Which has been a little bit of everything. His defense may not be up to his spry early days in Utah, but he’s steady and gets in good position, traits the Nets need on that end of the court. And he’s shooting a career-best .398 from 3-point range.

That the Nets have been able to pencil in that presence nightly is a testament to O’Neale’s willingness to play through a host of injuries, the same way he did last year in Utah when he stoically gutted through knee and thumb problems that hurt his production down the stretch.

“If I can walk and run, I can play,” O’Neale said with a shrug. “If I need to take care of myself and sit, I will; but I’m trying to be one of those reliable guys and doing whatever I’ve got to for this team, whether it’s offense or defense and just being out there.”

The assumption was playing alongside Durant and Irving (when both are healthy and available) would require O’Neale to put the ball on the floor less. But he’s been allowed — or asked? — to do more than many expected.

“Royce has been huge for us, not only on the floor, in the locker room, the consistency that he brings every single day, the joy that he brings to the gym every single day,” Vaughn said. “A guy that I enjoy coaching, enjoy being around, count on. He’s played a lot of minutes for us, different roles, semi-point guard at times, four-man at times. So little bit of everything and appreciate all of it.”

The stars’ gravity lets O’Neale attack closeouts and get open spot-up looks from deep. And on the nights either (or Ben Simmons) has been sidelined, he’s been asked to be a secondary playmaker, leading to his averaging a career-high four assists. His 0.7 blocks are also a career-best.

It’s a role he prepared for long before training camp.

“Just the way I trained during the offseason, coming in in the best shape I can and … just being prepared to do whatever,” O’Neale said. “I think being that versatile guy, being able to play different positions even though it’s totally different situations, and me just competing hard.”

That offseason saw O’Neale inadvertently go viral, when Jazz CEO Danny Ainge traded him to Brooklyn on June 30 for a first-round pick (acquired from Philadelphia in the James Harden deal).

At the time, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst prescient question “why would the Jazz do that?” became a meme. But Brooklyn’s first-round sweep at the hands of Boston last season made it obvious why the Nets would do it. They had a glaring need for a bigger 3-and-D type on the wing, and bet on O’Neale to fill that gaping hole.

“It felt good,” O’Neale said. “I’ve always been able to play with the ball more. Just reading different situations, and becoming more comfortable with it, confident.

“But that’s just me just being not limited, and putting myself in situations that I’m able to succeed, and trade a new opportunity and take advantage of it. Just being able to do whatever I’ve got to do.”

Despite coming off a subpar outing — fouling out Thursday against Detroit with just three points on 1-of-7 shooting — O’Neale has made a host of winning plays for Brooklyn.

There was a clutch 3-pointer to help beat Toronto on Oct. 21, a game-winning tip Nov. 17 at Portland, and his huge plays Jan. 8 in Miami. After Durant went down in that night, O’Neale not only hit the go-ahead floater but went vertical to help force Jimmy Butler into a game-sealing miss with 0.5 seconds left.

“The biggest thing about that possession is Royce covers for his teammate, and so he comes over…Royce is vertical at the rim and we live with the results, which was in our favor,” Vaughn said. “You just count on him to do the right thing and be in the right place. He’s just garnered the trust of his teammates and the confidence of his teammates.”

That trust has just grown over the first half of the season. Like Irving passing up a shot to kick the ball to O’Neale with 28.5 seconds to play last weekend in Golden State, and the latter draining a go-ahead 3 to beat the defending champs.

“That was the best shot for our team,” Irving said. “So I gave up the ball and trusted him to make it.”