Someone must have soaked the ball used by the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks Thursday in some slippery substance because how else can this happen if someone didn’t?

That’s a good eight-second stretch of players scrambling for the leather. It’s long enough for viewers to question themselves whether they’re watching basketball or just two rugby teams forming a ruck out there.

The only thing missing here is the broadcast team switching the audio to the music of Yakety Sax.

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Believe it or now, however, that’s not the craziest thing that happened to this game. That honor goes to the insane performance of Knicks forward Michael Beasley, who blacked out in the game’s second half, scoring 28 of his 32 points in the third and fourth period to almost single-handedly carry New York to a 102-93 upset of the current No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference.

Beasley would hear nothing of rumors about that ball being lathered up, as he shot 13-of-20 from the field in that game. That said, maybe that’s the reason why Kristaps Porzingis missed all of his 11 shots, while the Celtics went just 34.2 percent from the floor.

The Knicks and Celtics should just leave all the fumbling issues to the Jet, Giants, and Patriots.