PHILADELPHIA — There is something to be said for winning ugly. This is that something:

It beats losing ugly.

It also beats losing pretty.

The Knicks are in an ugly phase right now, trapped in the adolescence of their season, pimply faced, lugging around a little too much baby fat, sporting a bowl-cut hairstyle. In the right light — on the right night — they offer hints of what may come a bit later. They have shown they can play with some of the better teams in the East.

On the wrong nights … well. We’ve seen a few of those, too.

Monday night was mostly a wrong night, despite a 103-96 final score, the Knicks landing on the good side of the hyphen. The Sixers were decimated, four players out thanks to COVID-19 protocols including Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris. Ben Simmons is still a non-person in Philadelphia. Somehow Doc Rivers had guided this team to eight wins in 10 games, but they were beaten up and beaten down.

And still they were within 89-88 with 5:01 to go, before Julius Randle finished them off, scoring 10 of his game-high 31 points the rest of the way. The Knicks survived. They won ugly. They ran for the bus and headed home before they could be judged for style points.

“Teams that are short-handed play incredibly hard,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said of the Sixers, throwing a few bouquets to his friend and former boss, Rivers. “I thought we came out with a lot more intensity tonight. Our guys were flying around.”

A couple of things have become abundantly clear about the Knicks’ personality across these first 11 games. They do have a tantalizing ceiling. They really can compete with the best teams in the East — forget Monday’s version of the 76ers, the Knicks already pounded them at virtual full strength at the Garden; they also have quality wins at Chicago and at Milwaukee.

That is enough to inflate your basketball dreams.

But they also have a disturbingly pedestrian floor, one they have explored a little too frequently so far this year, certainly in the present three-game losing streak at the Garden, and those will infiltrate your nightmares. They’ll hope to quash that Wednesday, when the Bucks visit New York fresh off back-to-back trips to the White House Monday and here in Philly on Tuesday.

Both of these extremes are illustrated by their habit, during almost all 11 games, of playing either up or down to the level of their opponents. That can make the highs look astonishingly promising. And can make the lows horrifically troublesome. It goes without saying that they can’t survive this custom for 82 games, not if they wish to flirt with taking another step forward.

But they were able to survive 48 minutes Monday at a Wells Fargo Center that was still filled with engaged Sixers fans who gave the Knicks a hard time all night and tossed a miniature toy basketball on the floor at the end just to spice things up a little.

“You know how Philly is,” Randle said, laughing, before turning serious.

“I think we took a step forward tonight,” he said after shooting 12-for-25 from the field (5-for-10 from 3) and adding 12 rebounds. “All of us learning, and finding things out.”

Thibodeau shrugged off the possibility that the Knicks might have suffered a letdown when it became apparent this game — which is certainly one they would’ve circled in red ink before the season began — was going to feature merely a replica of the Sixers team that will likely be one of the betting favorites to come out of the East.

And he knows better than anyone that his team has to figure out a way to spend more games floating near that ceiling, fewer dragging the floor.

“We won today but there’s still a lot to work on,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we can feel too good about ourselves. We’re learning.”

An eighth of the way home, the Knicks are learning a lot about themselves every night. They know they can win ugly when they have to. It’s not their preferred method. But it does beat the alternative.