NEW YORK — Kevin Durant felt like his Golden State Warriors needed a scoring punch, as the pesky New York Knicks were hanging around longer than anyone expected Friday night in an escalating atmosphere at Madison Square Garden.

What Durant delivered was a scoring haymaker in the fourth, a flurry of uppercuts that left the Knicks staggering in a building that has seen its share of championship fights and championship players through all types of incarnations of MSG.

But it’s doubtful the Garden has seen many scoring displays as clinical as Durant scoring 25 of his season-high 41 points in the fourth quarter of the Warriors’ 128-100 win — a barrage of easy moves against helpless defenders that turned the crowd from cheering for the Knicks to one admiring greatness.

Aside from DeMarcus Cousins’ ejection for apparently trash-talking from the bench, and Durant getting into his own barking session with former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate Enes Kanter, a scoring explosion was the next predictable thing on the Warriors’ wheel this night.

“You do it in the Garden, it’s a different buzz as well,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said of Durant’s performance. “Low-key, we become fans on the court. It was fun to watch for sure when he gets in that type of aggressive mode.”

Curry was walking up toward the scorer’s table with the game still in the balance, the Warriors clinging to a one-point lead in the fourth. All it gave him was the best seat in the house for Durant’s rhythm, which gave the Knicks the blues as he hit three quick buckets before they could blink, the two-time MVP raising his arms to the sky as the Knicks called timeout.

Considering Curry dropped 51 Wednesday night, it was Durant’s turn, and of course the backdrop of Madison Square Garden and the Knicks’ interest in bringing Durant to this building next season produced the perfect stage for Durant to perform.

“It was great. It’s always great here,” Durant said. “It’s always loud. They enjoy every play, no matter what team it is, if it’s a good play, they’re cheering for it. That’s pure; I like that.”

Knicks coach David Fizdale lamented his team’s inability to sustain a six-point lead to start the fourth, but with Durant going Super Saiyan, there’s not many teams with the wherewithal to keep up.

“It feels like your confidence is high, everything is in rhythm,” Curry said. “You kind of force the issue, but things still work out, can still get to your spots. You feel invincible. Like anything you throw up is going in. You try to ride that wave.”

After going between the legs twice and turning a quick crossover into an easy triple in front of the Knicks’ bench, Durant struggled to describe what the feeling compares to.

“I feel like you catch every green light when you’re trying to get somewhere. Exactly what it feels like,” he said. “I only took two shots in the third, I wasn’t aggressive enough. I wanted to come out there, impose my will, score the ball. I felt like we needed it. I felt like we needed a scoring punch, so I tried to be aggressive.”

For all the speculation around Durant, he appears to be at ease on the floor, barely breaking a sweat. There wasn’t much in the way of extra New York pomp and circumstance, aside from singer Ashanti, a Durant favorite, singing the national anthem and performing at halftime. There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of signs begging Durant to make New York home in July, either, a ritual for Knicks fans every time a free-agent-to-be looks their way.

The speculation is in the air and cannot be ignored, at least for the moment, as the Warriors make their lone trip to the New York area this weekend before having to embark on 70-something more games and, presumably, another run at a ring.

“We’ve been through a lot more chaos and noise around our team. It’s par for the course,” Curry said. “How he’s handled it, letting his play speak for itself and not getting too wrapped up or involved in it. We have seven more months of this, so we know how to keep distractions out of our locker room and control what we can control.”

Durant is at the peak of his powers and seemed to easily put away yet another opponent. It was almost amusing to watch him toy with the Knicks, and not because the Knicks are toothless.

But when a player like this gets comfortable, not much matters.

Teammates can turn into fans.

Opponents can turn into statues.

And opposing crowds can transform into basketball savants who realize talents like this don’t come around often — even if he doesn’t so much as wink their way this offseason.

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