First Basket Controversy: Twitter Erupts as Kevon Looney’s First Basket Graded as Layup in Game 3 of NBA Finals

There was some controversy surrounding the first basket during Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics.

The first basket has been a popular prop for bettors in the NBA Finals. Most bettors just bet a certain player to score the first basket. However, other bettors like to get cute and bet the type of basket, or a certain player to score a certain type of basket.

Those are the bettors who might be upset with Wednesday night's ruling.

Warriors forward Kevon Looney got the ball under the basket, made a few pivots and then turned toward the hoop and shot the ball one-handed into the basket.

NBA officially ruled it as a layup.

A layup, as defined by dictionary.com, is "a shot with one hand from a point close to the basket, in which a player shoots the ball toward the basket, often off the backboard."

Using that definition, Looney's shot can be categorized as a layup.

People that bet "other" as the type of shot would make the argument that it is not a layup as a layup would have to go off the backboard. Others might say there has to be momentum going toward the hoop as well.

Looney did neither.

On FanDuel, Looney was +9500 to make the first basket in the "other" category. "Other" would classify as a shot that was not a layup, dunk, three-pointer or jump shot.

Looney by layup was +3200.

In Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Mavericks, Looney scored a similar first basket that was ruled as "other". He appears to be facing away from the basket and it looks more like a hook shot.

Box scores aren't finalized until the end of the game and it will be interesting to see if they make any changes to this ruling.