A layup is a close-range shot taken on the move, usually laid off the backboard with one hand as the shooter drives to the basket.
The layup is the first shot every player learns and the finish most drives end with. The shooter approaches the basket at speed, leaves the floor off one foot, and lays the ball into the hoop or softly off the backboard with one hand, using the body's momentum rather than a set shooting motion. Reverse layups, finger rolls, and euro step finishes are all members of the same family: close range shots taken in motion.
Coaching language treats the layup as the sport's highest percentage look, which is why defences are built backwards from it. Schemes are designed first to keep drivers out of the paint, and offences that generate layups in volume are considered well built even before their jump shooting is judged.
The term also survives as an idiom for an easy task, a usage borrowed from the shot's reputation. In the record book, layups hide inside plain field goal numbers: the box score does not separate them, so the layup's history lives in game film and in the memories of the drives that produced famous ones, from Dr. J's baseline scoop in the 1980 Finals onward.
In use"He split the defenders and finished the layup off the glass."