As if the New York Knicks needed any further justification for bolstering their depth at the trade deadline, the Detroit Pistons were happy to provide more evidence on Friday night in the Motor City.

Detroit’s doubles were more than happy to pick up the slack on an off night for their All-Stars, as the Pistons exacted further revenge on the Knicks to the tune of a 118-80 shellacking at Little Caesars Arena.

Friday marked the Knicks’ first outing since the passing of the NBA trade deadline, which saw New York acquire depth star Jose Alvarado (who was not available to make his Knicks debut in Friday’s fracas).

Jalen Duren sat due to injury while Cade Cunningham was plagued by foul trouble, but that proved to have little effect on the conference-leading Pistons (38-13), who took a 2-0 lead in their three-game series with the Knicks.

Iona/St. John’s alum Daniss Jenkins, due for a promotion from his two-way deal, led the Pistons with 18 off the bench, part of a bench press that scored more than half the host’s tally at 66 points. Detroit was a plus-23 on the scoreboard during Jenkins’ 18 minutes, third-best among Piston reserves behind Paul Reed (plus-32) and Ron Holland (plus-28).

Thus ends the Knicks’ longest winning streak of the season against the team that gave them a strong challenge in the first round of last year’s Eastern Conference Finals run.

Led by 19 points from Mikal Bridges, the Knicks (33-19) could at least take solace in the fact that they played Friday’s game, their lowest scoring effort of the season to date, and worst losing efforts since 2019, without OG Anunoby or Karl-Anthony Towns.

Bridges kept things somewhat respectable in the first half with a 6-of-11 tally from the field before going 1-of-5 in the latter 24.

Nonetheless, the Knicks likely harbor some concern over another no-show against the conference leaders, who defeated New York by a combined 69 points in their two showings in Detroit this year.

Solid defense at tip-off kept the Knicks in the game as Jalen Brunson missed seven of his first eight: New York held a 12-9 lead just after the midway mark of the first, after a reverse layup for Landry Shamet, but the Pistons ended the frame on a 19-5 run punctuated by a Jenkins triple.

That fateful three turned out to be foreshadowing for the rest of the game: one of Detroit’s few weaknesses was its outside shooting (ranking 22nd in triples and attempts coming into Friday’s game), and it aimed to address those concerns by adding Kevin Huerter from Chicago.

Detroit took care of things long before Huerter entered at the end, hitting 17-of-40 to build an eternal lead, which never dipped back to a single digit after Reed hit a triple jumper 35 seconds in the second period.

As the Pistons inflated the affair, the Knicks endured injury to insult when Josh Hart was forced to go to the locker room early after aggravating the ankle injury that kept him out of Wednesday’s win over Denver.

By then, the Knicks had little resistance for Detroit on a night where Brunson was 4-of-20 from the field, including 0-of-8 from three-point range.

New York will get one chance to prove their mettle against the Pistons when Detroit visits Madison Square Garden immediately after the All-Star break. In the meantime, a testy weekend concludes on Sunday afternoon when the Knicks face a Super Bowl appetizer against the Boston Celtics (12:30 p.m. ET, ABC).