Watch: Nikola Jokic pretends to tie his shoe to buy Nuggets time

In the third quarter of Thursday night's win over the Boston Celtics, Jaylen Brown lost the ball out of bounds. But the officials ruled that a Nuggets player got his hand on the ball. Jokic immediately signaled for head coach Michael Malone to challenge the call, but Malone hadn't gotten a clear look at the play.

Clearly, Malone needed time to look at the replay. That's when Jokic sprung into action. Or, rather, knelt into action.

Jokic leaned down and pretended to tie his shoe immediately in front of the in-bounder, causing a delay as the referee waited. That gave Malone time to watch the play on the scoreboard, decide to use his challenge and win a key extra possession for his team.

Jokic has shown this skill before. When the Nuggets have a lead late in the game, Jokic often invents ways to slow down the in-bounding process. He will let the basketball bounce away, intentionally mishandle passes or pretend to be upset about a non-call, all while letting the game clock run without the shot clock starting.

Jokic gets away with it in part because of how he looks. On appearance alone, you would never think the oafish-looking Jokic was a two-time MVP and Finals MVP. So in the moment, it seems perfectly reasonable that he would fumble a simple pass from the referee and stumble around the baseline.

Those extra five or six seconds he wastes can make a difference over time. The moves show Jokic's smarts, but the key part of being smart in that way is to come across as dumb. The Joker keeps a straight face, never acknowledging his antics, even looking dour and downtrodden about his imaginary untied laces. Seconds later, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope made a jumper.

In a game where the Celtics were down one possession in the final minute, stealing a possession in the third quarter was huge. Otherwise the game would have been tied. Just like Jokic's sneakers.