NBA

Knicks’ West Coast trip starts in worst way possible

OAKLAND — So it starts with precisely the kind of gruesome, grisly, no-show, no-account performance you feared it would start with, equal parts pathetic and infuriating.

It starts with the Golden State Warriors pummeling the Knicks, clobbering them in every phase of the game, it starts with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson making the Knicks’ guards look glacial, with David Lee throwing some thanks-for-the-memories haymakers at their bigs.

It starts with Carmelo Anthony back in the lineup but barely: looking tentative and shaky, looking rusty, looking like he wants no part of contact, which robs him of half his firepower.

It starts with an offense that looked barely competitive, barely competent, and a defense that looked even worse.

It starts with this damning assessment from Jason Kidd, who has seen a thing or three in his day: “We didn’t put up a fight.” And this from Mike Woodson: “Tonight, we had nothing.”

This western journey to oblivion starts in the worst way possible, the Warriors throttling the Knicks 92-63, exposing every flaw, exploiting every fault, having a hell of a time doing it, riling the crowd inside Oracle Arena, inspiring a wave of clicks all across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut as working folk realized there was no need to battle the snooze button over this one.

The only Knick with any sense was J.R. Smith, ejected for a flagrant foul with 6:51 left in the third quarter, meaning he was spared the full breadth of the beating.

Yes. It was that bad. It was as bad as bad can get.

“We have enough bodies to play,” Woodson said. “We did what we had to do the other night against Utah. But tonight we had nothing.”

Actually, they had less than nothing, and at the absolute worst possible time. Look, the Knicks have had their share of atrocious performances this year, absorbed their share of ruthless beatings. They have, in truth, been splattered against the windshield more than a team still 15 games over .500 ever should be.

But there were so many ominous things about the way this one played out, so many egregious lapses of effort and judgment, and far too many segments of the game where the Knicks weren’t simply outplayed, but outclassed. They took a 1-0 lead. It was their last lead of the game. That was all that spared them a sixth wire-to-wire loss.

“That,” Tyson Chandler said, “is not the way to start a trip.”

Certainly not this trip, at this point in the season, the Knicks desperately trying to keep their lead in the Atlantic Division, desperately trying to stay in the fight for the two seed in the East, desperately trying to convince themselves — and everyone else — that they are closer to the 18-5 team that started the season than the 20-18 team that has meandered through the last 38.

Instead, they continued the meandering. They shot 27.4 percent for the game, lowest of any NBA team in any game all year. They couldn’t make a shot, couldn’t prevent the Warriors from getting whatever they wanted, couldn’t come close to keeping up. It’s hard to fathom an uglier 48 minutes.

“When you’re not making shots,” said Kidd, who missed all three of his, “you’ve got to do something different. You’ve got to find another way to get in the game. And we didn’t.”

They didn’t. They couldn’t guard Curry and Thompson, who destroyed them for 30 first-half points. They couldn’t get anything out of Anthony, who wasn’t himself, wasn’t even half the man he used to be, favoring his banged-up right knee and playing without any life, any hop, any power.

They never play well in Oakland, and lived down to that history. They are walking into a buzz saw tomorrow night in Denver, where the locals will be eager to haunt, hound and harass Anthony.

We saw what the Clippers did to the Knicks not long ago at the Garden. And the two winnable games — Portland and Utah — are the back ends of back-to-backs. So much heavy lifting ahead. And it starts with this: a no-show in Oakland, a no-account blistering.

This is where it starts, and that’s the most concerning part. It’s only the start.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com