This is the most important stretch of the Knicks’ season.

Monday’s home matchup against the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 — seeded Detroit Pistons kicked off an 11-game gauntlet of elevated competition — the kind the Knicks haven’t consistently faced yet this year.

New York entered the All-Star break just 12-14 against teams with a winning record — 13-14 if you count the NBA Cup victory over the San Antonio Spurs. Eight of their first 11 games out of the break, beginning with Thursday’s meeting with Detroit, come against teams at .500 or better. Two of the remaining three feature Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks and Kawhi Leonard’s Los Angeles Clippers.

The Knicks were far more comfortable against lesser competition, going 22-6 against teams with losing records before the break. But their recent blowout losses to the Pistons–once by 37 without OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson, and again by 31 earlier in the season–underscore a trend for a team that hasn’t played its best basketball against the best competition.

“Yeah it should [motivate us]. They didn’t just win the game. They beat us pretty bad. So for us, I don’t want to say this game is more important than the next game. Every game is extremely important, but there comes a certain point when you’re in competition. If wins and losses are as lopsided as those two losses, that should shake you up a little bit,” head coach Mike Brown said after practice on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, we win tomorrow or win the next two games or however many games we play them, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee come playoff time or vice-versa.”

The Knicks entered Thursday 0-2 against Detroit. They were 2-1 against the Boston Celtics, who traded Anfernee Simons for Nikola Vucevic and could see Jayson Tatum return from an Achilles injury this season. They were 2-0 against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who traded Darius Garland for James Harden and sent sixth man De’Andre Hunter to Sacramento for Dennis Schröder and Keon Ellis. They were 1-2 each against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Orlando Magic (now without Franz Wagner) and the Miami Heat — a combined 9-9 mark against the East’s best entering the stretch run.

Against the West, the Knicks were 1-1 against the Spurs (0-1 without counting the Cup), 1-0 against the Nuggets and Lakers, 1-1 against Minnesota, 0-2 against Phoenix and 0-1 against Golden State — a 2-5, or 3-5 including the Cup, record. They had yet to see the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder or Kevin Durant’s Houston Rockets.

Detroit came first. Houston follows on Saturday. Soon comes a West Coast swing featuring  Denver and both Los Angeles teams in early March.

“I’m a firm believer that I’ve been around this thing long enough to see some teams go 0-4 and still win the series and some teams go 3-4 and still win the series,” Brown said. “So that part doesn’t matter, it’s just about how the first two games [against Detroit] turned out for us.”

He’s right. The regular season guarantees nothing: the Knicks held losing regular-season records against Detroit and Boston before eliminating both in last year’s playoffs. The Pistons nearly upset them anyway. Boston lost Tatum mid-series. And New York held a winning regular-season record over Indiana — the same Pacers team that ended its season in the conference finals.