The Boston Massacre — the Celtics’ 104–59 drubbing of the Knicks back in November —told us a lot about the locals. It braced us for a first half of the season that was full of ugly, lethargic basketball, full of mystifying personnel usage, bizarre interpersonal drama, and several long losing streaks.

Boston’s 109–93 win at Madison Square Garden yesterday afternoon may be equally telling, but the harbingers are nowhere near as bad. They aren’t especially positive either.

The Knicks came into yesterday’s game on a hot streak, with four wins in five games: Two of their victims were road-weary teams, and a third was the Miami Heat, who are in the midst of the fastest penthouse-to-outhouse freefall in NBA history. Nonetheless, the Knicks played well during the streak, and the hardcore fans could be forgiven for dreaming of the playoffs. Even now, with a .317 winning percentage, the Knicks are only 5 games from the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Yesterday’s performance should eliminate any postseason dreams, though. The Knicks are still a team beset by poor roster deployment and poorer defense. New York’s starting backcourt of Fred Jones and Jamal Crawford were misused early on when Crawford was assigned to cover Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo, while Jones, the better on-ball defender of the two, covered Boston marksman Ray Allen. Rondo blew by Crawford, repeatedly forcing Knicks defenders to help to close the middle. This continually left Celtics center Kendrick Perkins open. Perkins isn’t known for his scoring prowess, but by the end of the first quarter, he had 20 points, one shy of his career high for a game. In addition, the Knicks were getting killed on the boards; the Celts grabbed 11 of the first 14 rebounds.

Another bad rout was a possibility when Celtics coach Doc Rivers did the Knicks a big favor. Early in the second quarter, he countered the Knicks’ “energy unit” — the group led by pivotman David Lee, guard Nate Robinson, and swingman Jared Jeffries — with a motley crew of Celtics, including Allen, guard Tony Allen, guard Eddie House, forward Leon Powe, and power forward Brian Scalabrine. The small Boston lineup couldn’t board to save their lives, and the Knicks closed the gap to two points before the Celtics’ starters came back and restored the double-digit lead by halftime.

I suppose it’s hard to take a team seriously after you’ve beaten them by 45, but Rivers’s move seemed careless and irresponsible. He had Glen “Big Baby” Davis at his disposal, and he is a much better rebounder than Scalabrine. Rivers can afford these sorts of mad scientist moments against the Knicks, but against tougher opposition, the Celts will suffer if they don’t maximize their personnel.

Most of the second half was simply a matter of whether the Knicks would cover the point spread. When the Knicks narrowed the lead to seven toward the middle of the fourth quarter, Kevin Garnett hit two tough shots in the lane, and House followed with a three to put the game out of reach.

In the end, the most telling numbers were Boston’s 54.7% shooting, and a host of underutilized Knicks. Through 41 games, it should be obvious that center Eddy Curry and forward Zach Randolph, the team’s two best interior scorers, play best apart. Choose one and have Lee play alongside him, and the Knicks’ offense clicks. Yet somehow, Lee only saw 20 minutes of burn yesterday. Renaldo Balkman received a meager two minutes of burn, and rather than play on the perimeter where he is most effective, he was asked to defend Garnett in the low post, a physically overwhelming assignment.

It’s unlikely that, even if the Knicks efficiently utilize their personnel, they could beat Boston. The talent disparity is simply too large. But if the Knicks don’t make the most of their roster every night, what chance do they stand against anybody?

As should be crystal clear by now, the Knicks have scorers in Curry, Crawford, and Randolph, and “energizers” in Lee, Balkman, Robinson, Jeffries, and Jones. Creating an effective mix of the two camps is the key to any successes that don’t involve accumulating pingpong balls for the lottery.

Even with this loss, the Knicks are still on their hottest streak of the season. Almost every bad team has a good stretch somewhere in the campaign. The Los Angeles Clippers won their first four games and had some analysts thinking that they could hang in the Western Conference playoff race until their injured stars came back. Then reality set in, and the Clips have lost 24 of 32 since then. Although it was nothing like the embarrassment of the loss to the Celtics in November, yesterday’s loss was telling for the Knicks. The team simply isn’t good enough defensively and doesn’t make good enough use of their roster to win with any regularity. Sure, when the stars and the schedule align in their favor, they win a few in a row. But more and more over the second half of the season, Knicks fans should be turning their attention to the NCAA and dreaming of the lottery in Secaucus.

mjohnson@nysun.com