Every now and again, the buzz inside Madison Square Garden lets you know what the people want, where they want this Knicks team to go — where, specifically, they would like the basketball to go.

Sometimes, Kristaps Porzingis isn’t really open. Doesn’t really matter. When he gets position inside, under the basket, when he finds himself with a step and a half of room out top, beyond the 3-point arc, that’s when the hum really picks up, and the inside of the Garden sounds like the inside of a beehive.

And if the ball happens to be in Carmelo Anthony’s hands while the faithful watch Porzingis battle for position?

Then it’s not just a buzz, or a hum, or a murmur, or a drone.

Sometimes a desperate voice from the darkness provides the soundtrack:

GET HIM THE BALL!!!!

GEEEETTTTTHIMMMMTHEBALLLLLL!!!

Porzingis hears it, because you’d have to be deaf not to. But even as the Knicks’ second-year wunderkind is blossoming into stardom, he remains committed to a certain truth: He is still the team’s second banana. And he wears that label happily.

“Without Melo,” Porzingis said Sunday afternoon, “it would be so much more difficult [for me] to get 30 points, or whatever. People don’t realize that. He draws a lot of attention. He’s the main focus for the other team. That opens stuff for me. Without him it would be much more difficult. I’m happy to have aggressive guys like him and [Derrick] Rose so I can get those open looks.”

Porzingis had another fine day Sunday, collecting 19 points and 11 rebounds as the Knicks led for the final 44 minutes of the game, beating the Hawks 104-94 before a sleepy noontime gathering of 19,812 at the Garden. He was terrific, and so was Courtney Lee (14 points, five assists), and so was Kyle O’Quinn (eight points, eight rebounds). Given the opponent, it may have been the most feel-good win of the season for the Knicks.

And oh yes: Anthony had 31 points (on 12-for-22 from the field), seven rebounds, three assists and a couple of steals. Every now and again, there comes a movement from the masses to coronate Porzingis, to declare the Knicks his team of today in addition to tomorrow. And sometimes Porzingis makes a very compelling case.

For now?

For now the Knicks are still going to rise, fall, grow and regress given the daily whims of their best player. Porzingis is right: One of the reasons he has been able to thrive — not the only one, but an important one — is that Anthony still commands enough respect from a defense that even at 7-foot-3, Porzingis is a regular footnote.

And on those days when Anthony is drawing the defense’s attention AND he’s playing at the kind of level he was on Sunday?

“He’s still one of the best in the league when it comes to breaking his man down one-on-one,” coach Jeff Hornacek said. “And he was great today.”

Those one-on-one proclivities also get the buzz-makers at the Garden to work overtime every now and again, because so many Knicks possessions tend to wind up with the ball in Anthony’s hands, eight seconds on the shot clock. At the Garden, “isolation” has become a nine-letter, four-letter word.

Just not on those days when the majority of those possessions end well. Like Sunday.

“Picking my spots,” is how Anthony termed his workday, which came a day after the Knicks had an hour-long team meeting that included coaches and, for a time, an observational (though apparently mute) Phil Jackson. Team meetings generally work better when you have a team like the 76ers stopping by, and not the 9-4 Hawks. But this one seemed to work just fine.

“Guys said what they had to say,” Anthony said. “There was a great response from everybody — players, coaches, everyone in there. The players did a great job voicing where we want to be, what kind of team we want to be, where we want to go.”

On Sunday, Anthony did an even better job in sketching out the blueprint how to get there. The future belongs to Porzingis, there’s no disputing that. For now, Melo’s shoulders are just big enough to give the rest of them a ride when they really need it.