BOSTON — The expectation was that the New York Knicks would be in the same conversation as the NBA’s elite this season. You don’t trade five first-round picks for Mikal Bridges if that isn’t the case. You don’t make an overnight move for Karl-Anthony Towns if the idea isn’t to contend for a championship.

Yet, 57 games through the NBA season, the Knicks have done everything except enter that stratosphere. That is reserved for the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder, three teams that New York is 0-7 against.

This weekend was a chance for the Knicks to change that narrative. A Friday matchup in Cleveland followed by a Sunday matinee against Boston could have shifted the way people view New York in just 48 hours. What happened instead was a 37-point loss to the Cavaliers and a 13-point loss to the Celtics that really wasn’t as close as the score suggests.

The weekend reaffirmed what was already out there: the Knicks aren’t there yet.

The issues start defensively, where the Knicks have continuously been up-and-down all season. New York’s pick-and-roll coverage, poor communication in transition and inability to guard across the board puts them behind the league’s best. And for a New York offense that has been upper-tier all season, it looks mortal against these championship contenders because they are capable of doing things the Knicks haven’t been able to.

Using the latest Celtics game as a launching point, I’m going to break down the film to show where the Knicks’ shortcomings are against the NBA’s best teams.

Towns is one of the most skilled big men the NBA has ever seen. The gravity he carries as an elite 3-point shooter opens up so much for an offense, like it has this year in New York. Being able to play him at center on that end of the floor gives the Knicks more optionality. However, having to play him as a center on the defensive end comes with shortcomings due to his physical limitations.

Towns isn’t quick. He’s not an explosive leaper. He takes a while to get going when he plants his feet. His hips don’t turn with the grace of a ballerina. That’s why when the Knicks made the trade for Towns just before training camp, I wasn’t sure it would make New York better (knowing that Mitchell Robinson would be out a while and unsure if he’d even be the same when he returned). I thought it would make them different. That has shown to be true.

The Timberwolves saw their greatest success as an organization in the last 20 years when it paired Towns with a more traditional rim protector in Rudy Gobert. It hurt the Timberwolves offense, but it allowed them to be one of the best defenses in basketball. New York doesn’t have Gobert, and to maximize the offense, Towns has to play center, which means he’s often the center defensively.

In the above clip, which took place in the first half of Sunday’s loss, when the Celtics were able to go up by 20-plus, Towns’ limitations as a defender show. He’s even up higher in the drop coverage than he usually is, but his inability to quickly recover to a stretch big in Kristaps Porziņģis, leaves Boston with a clean look from 3. Towns also didn’t even put a hand up to contest. Bridges did a good job of getting over the screen but Towns does have to help. He’s just unable to get back to Porziņģis in a timely fashion and doesn’t try to disrupt the screen with an extended hand, which has been a common theme this season.

Per Second Spectrum, there were 50 times in Sunday’s game that Towns guarded a Celtics screener in pick-and-rolls. That is the fourth-most of any game this season for Towns and the most Boston made Towns do that in the two teams’ three games this year.

To be fair, Towns hasn’t been atrocious guarding the screener this season. Per Second Spectrum, the Knicks allow 1.035 points per direct pick-and-roll when Towns does, and that’s in the 64th percentile of 118 qualified players. However, he’s really struggled against the Celtics which continues to drive home the point that Boston is on another planet.

Here’s what happens when Towns switches the ball screen as opposed to playing in drop (Cameron Payne and Towns are not switching partners, so this shouldn’t have happened).

All it does for Boston is create an advantage with Porziņģis being covered by the much-smaller Payne after he sets the screen for Derrick White. It leads to an and-1 basket. The Celtics just have several ways of creating advantages for themselves. The Knicks don’t have that luxury.

Let me show you.

Jrue Holiday is a luxury. Why? He’s a power forward in a point guard’s body. Him defending a big isn’t often a mismatch, even if it appears that way. The first meeting of the season (Oct. 22), Boston had Holiday spending a lot of time guarding Towns so that the Celtics could bait the Knicks into hunting the mismatches, while also welcoming 2-pointers in exchange for 3s on the other end.

The Celtics can comfortably put Holiday on Towns, allowing Porziņģis to guard whichever non-shooter the Knicks have on the floor, because he’s strong and an incredible post defender for his size. This makes New York’s top-notch offense stagnant. Only so many teams have guards/wings able to disrupt Towns (Oklahoma City is one of them).

Everyone stood around and watched as Towns attempted to post-up Holiday. There was no movement, no cutting.

To dig into the Knicks’ troubles even more, the transition defense has been underwhelming most of the year, but most notably against teams with firepower like Boston. Per NBA.com, New York’s transition defense ranks bottom-10 in points per possession and effective field goal percentage.

More often than not, it’s just poor communication. Too often someone leaks out and is able to step into a wide-open 3 or get a dunk.

In the above clip, all five Knicks players on the floor cross half court before one Celtics player does. In the end, it ends with Sam Hauser having the most open 3 of the night. No one pointed him out. No one accounted for him. Allowing a good offensive team to get comfortable, in-rhythm shots is something New York has done too often this year.

I’m sure Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau told his team during the film session following Friday’s loss to the Cavaliers this play is inexcusable, even though Isaac Okoro missed the shot.

After a made basket, New York surrendered an open corner with Okoro beating all five guys down the floor. That happening after a made shot is an entirely different level of trouble for New York. Even the best transition defenses have trouble in those instances. Offenses rule those situations far more often than not.

Here, though, this should have been a half-court defensive possession for the Knicks. Instead it led to a wide-open corner 3 because no one marked the one man who leaked out after a made shot.

To put a bow on this, the other thing that separates the Celtics, Cavaliers and Thunder from the Knicks is them having multiple shot creators. Boston has several players who can score off the dribble or set up a teammate. So does Oklahoma City. So does Cleveland.

New York has Jalen Brunson. Brunson, who has had a tremendous season, is really the only one on the roster who can break a defender down off the dribble at a high level. That’s not really Mikal Bridges’ game nor OG Anunoby’s nor Josh Hart’s. Towns has dribble-drive capabilities, but some teams, like Boston, bait Towns into putting the ball on the floor over lightly-contested jumpers.

Tatum is big enough to make Towns’ drive difficult on his own, but Porziņģis playing off Hart allows a 7-footer to divert the shot even more.

New York’s offense is best against teams who have more traditional bigs and don’t have a plethora of long, strong wings able to guard across the board. Against those teams, like Boston and Oklahoma City, the Knicks offense can look limited due to the lack of shot creation and not having players who naturally have quick triggers from beyond the arc. New York has struggled to get up 3s since Jan. 1, ranking 29th in 3-point attempts entering Sunday.

The Knicks are a very good team. But they’ve made it clear they are not one of the league’s very best teams. The sample size is large enough now to make that clear.

(Photo: Maddie Meyer /Getty Images)