A free throw is an uncontested shot worth one point, taken from the free throw line as a penalty after certain fouls.
The free throw is basketball's penalty shot: one point, taken from the line fifteen feet from the basket, with no defender allowed to contest it. Players fouled in the act of shooting take two free throws, or three if the shot was a three point attempt, and a made basket plus a foul produces a single extra attempt, the and-one. Technical fouls also send a shooter to the line.
The ritual around the shot is part of its identity. Players develop elaborate routines, crowds count the dribbles of famously slow shooters, and entire late game strategies turn on free throw percentages: trailing teams foul deliberately, and coaches substitute poor free throw shooters off the floor in the final minutes to protect them from that tactic.
At the record level, the term carries some of the game's most durable numbers. The career leaders in free throw attempts are among the most durable scorers the game has produced, and the best career shooters convert above ninety percent, a standard so high that a single miss in a big moment becomes folklore. On this site the record book uses free throws only as history, counted the way the official scorer counts them.
In use"She calmly sank both free throws to seal the win in the final seconds."