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Late in the Sacramento Kings’ 116-100 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Thursday, the Kings did something really weird. You know the “walk the dog” move that teams use to preserve as much time on the shot clock as possible? Well, Ty Lawson used it in order to milk the game clock. And it worked. 

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The Kings’ Twitter account praised Lawson’s “savvy move.”

Twenty-three seconds came off the clock because of that, and the Nuggets could hardly have been more confused. It took about 20 seconds for Jameer Nelson to cross halfcourt to try to get the ball, and Lawson waited until it had completely stopped rolling to pick it up.

If you’re wondering how in the world this is legal, it’s actually simple: The shot clock only starts when a player other than the inbounder touches the ball, while the game clock runs after made baskets until the last minute of the first, second and third quarters and the last two minutes of the fourth quarter. This happened with more than two minutes left, so Lawson was free to stand there and watch seconds tick off of the clock until someone forced him to pick up the ball.

If Sacramento wasn’t already up by 15 points at the time, I’d have more praise for Lawson’s ingenuity. Given that they had the game in the bag, though, it didn’t really seem necessary.