Just call him the Knicks’ sixth man.

It turns out that Mayor Bloomberg had physical contact with Stephen Jackson before the Spurs forward had to leave the game against the Knicks last Thursday with a sprained ankle.

The Knicks ended up winning easily, 100-83.

Eyewitnesses reported that Jackson tripped on a waitress, who was crouched on the sidelines with her back to the Madison Square Garden court while serving a drink to the mayor.

“He didn’t fall on her,” Bloomberg revealed today during a press conference in The Bronx dealing with schools.

“He came close and I just pushed him a little bit.”

The mayor acknowledged it would be “great for New York” if the Knicks and the Nets made it into the playoffs.

But he insisted his encounter with Jackson was an instinctive defensive move and not part of a secret strategy.

“I wasn’t helping ’em” he said of the Knicks.

No one at the press conference thought to ask if the Nets would now be inviting the mayor to sit in the front row of their games.