The basketball finals between the LA Lakers and Boston Celtics tipped off on ABC Thursday night and scored the best ratings overall that night in the preliminary numbers provided by Nielsen, reports TVbythenumbers.com.

Again, none of these are final numbers. ABC started the night with "Jimmy Kimmel Live Game Night" at eight, netting a 2.5 rating in the 18-49-year-old demo, matching Fox’s first half-hour of "So You Think You Can Dance."

At 8:30, "Dance" and the "NBA Countdown" on ABC were also tied, at a 3.2 rating each.

At nine o’clock, the game commenced and reached a 4.1 and 4.4 in the first two half hours, better than "Dance’s" 3.5 and 3.6, respectively.

For the ten o’clock hour, the basketball game had a 4.7 and 4.6 for each half hour in the 18-49-year-old demo.