This is the only situation in which it is sensible to dunk on your own basket

I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to figure out why on Earth Garlon Green -- brother of Gerald, forward for Germany’s Walter Tigers Tübingen -- tip-dunked an opponent’s missed free throw:

We boggled over it yesterday and couldn’t figure it out, in part because the situation wasn’t clear. I’m so thankful the producer of Shaqtin’ A Fool presented this interview on the subject with Green and BekoBBL’s Mike Koerner:

I really thought there was no possible way this was anything other than selfishness or a brain fart, but ... he kind of has a point! Holy crap! Let’s walk through Green’s logic, condition by condition:

1. The Tigers are down by 2 with 0.4 seconds remaining (Green says 0.7, but the clock says 0.4) and the opponent, Braunschweig, is shooting a free throw. You’d expect the opponent to try to hit the free throw, which would make it a three-point game, which would in turn give the Tigers a last-second chance to hit a long three-pointer for overtime. However ...

2. Green overhears the opponent’s coach telling his player to miss the free throw on purpose. This is clever, because the ball is live once it comes off the rim, and in the struggle to rebound, it is pretty much guaranteed that 0.4 seconds will elapse. Miss and the game is over no matter what. Therefore ...

3. Green reasons that he might prevent that time-draining rebound struggle by simply dunking the intentional miss into the basket. With a generous timekeeper, a tip dunk can be accomplished in under 0.4 seconds, and being down 4 with one more chance to possess the ball is technically better than being down 2 and never getting the ball back. That free throw was definitely going to miss and run out the remaining time, which meant the game was going to end if Green did nothing. The Tigers didn’t accomplish anything on the ensuing play with 0.3 seconds left (added back to the clock after the above videos end), but at least they had a chance.

It’s pie-in-the-sky logic because this is a nearly hopeless scenario, but it is logical provided that the other team is going to miss. Don’t dunk on your own basket, and the ball’s gonna get batted around long enough to ensure a loss. Dunk on your own basket and leave yourself a fraction of a second, and hey, maybe you can get a crazy four-point play on the final possession. It’s wild and desperate, but it makes a little bit of sense.

SB Nation presents: You have to see this dunk to believe it