NBA

This isn’t same Heat team Knicks handled earlier in season

The dunk was mere punctuation, an exclamation point for added emphasis and extra style points. The real message was sent a second or two earlier, the second LeBron James jumped the route, stepped in front of Carmelo Anthony and picked off the pass from J.R. Smith.

The instant the ball met James’ fingertips, Anthony’s shoulders sagged. Smith’s head bowed. The Heat don’t just beat you now they defeat you, they demoralize you, they humble you, they take the wind out of your lungs and the bounce out of your step and the energy out of your arena.

LeBron leading the parade every time.

“His motor,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, “is limitless.”

So, too, are the ways yesterday’s outcome — Heat 99, Knicks 93 — hurt like an uppercut to the Knicks’ solar plexus. There was a fair chunk of this game when you could almost see what the 19,033 inside the Garden were thinking, and feeling, trying to project all of this ahead a few months, sometime in late May or early June.

And when the Knicks led by 16 late in the second quarter, that was a fine thing for them to be thinking, and feeling, and dreaming about. By the end, when James was making play after play, shot after shot, stop after stop, it was still possible to think about what a match-up like this might look like in the playoffs.

It just wasn’t nearly as much fun then.

“They’re a good team — a great team — and you’ve got to do everything right to beat that team,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said.

And that may have been the most desultory part of it all. For extended stretches, the Knicks did precisely that, played exactly as you must to stand toe-to-toe with Miami. They were aggressive on both sides of the ball, they were fearless, they got a throwback game from Jason Kidd (4-for-5 from 3, six assists, three steals) and a brilliant half from Anthony and even some terrific work underneath from Amar’e Stoudemire.

And it wasn’t enough. Maybe in November and December it would have been, back when the Heat still occasionally shared their oxygen with mortals a few times a week, when the Knicks took 16-point leads against the Heat and made them 25-point spreads. But the Heat are on an epic roll, 14 in a row now, and there is always a sense they are on the verge of crushing you with a 54-34 run — which, as it happened, was the second-half score.

And here’s the thing: Even the Garden seemed to notice. When there’s a matinee here, big team in town, and the faithful sense there’s a good chance they’ll head back to the train platforms happy, then it sounds like Ali-Frazier an hour before the opening tip or the face-off and it never lets up.

The Garden didn’t have that yesterday, not until the second quarter, when the Knicks finally forced them out of their chairs with a 37-22 quarter. That’s something else the Heat can do to you: They not only are good enough to beat you, they can pilfer your hope before they even peel off their warm-ups.

“We know who they are,” Anthony said. “We know how explosive they can be. We know what you have to do to stay with them.”

They stayed with them fine. It was still 87-87 with under five to go, still just a four-point game with under a minute left when the Knicks dashed upcourt, looking for a 3 or a quick 2, when Smith looked for Melo, found LeBron instead, and the resulting slam sent everyone rushing toward the escalators.

“They came out to win tonight,” said Tyson Chandler, whose soft words belied the residual fury still ringing his eyes. “They know we’re a good team and we handled them pretty well the last couple games. This was a winnable game. I’m walking out of here feeling like we let one go.”

The Heat walked out another way: carrying another layer of confidence that if they do see the Knicks again at the Garden, which would have to be sometime in the spring, they’ll figure out a way to defeat, to demoralize, to humble. That’s how they roll now. And it is quite a roll.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com