Abstract : This study of a specific action in basketball was carried out in order to improve the conditons of the elaboration and the functioning of technical reasoning. The subject on which this exploration is based, the middle-distance shot, was chosen not only because of the impossibility of undertaking such an objective in a single study for the game as a whole but also because it is one of the typical actions, which is nevertheless problematical, in the field of teaching. The necessity to differentiate the operationalization, in an effort to better understand the singularity of the bodily technique concerned is recognized. This effort involves the description of what the technique entails, before being a process of transmission. It characterizes in part the technological approach. Digital images were used of game sequences of high level female players, such sequences are recognized as having the status of reference in practice for training purposes. A theoretical framework was constructed from the word action whose components related both to context and player were organized with an array of diverse knowledge and scientific information used as tools. It was conceived to describe the sturcture of certain particular shooting actions in matches. This made it possible to hone the pre-recorded observation and to carry out an interview with a player concerning the same sequences. These two studies made it possible to complete or correct the current technical views, notaly in the specialised literature, the analysis of which shows that they tend to remain restricted to the formal description of movements. The thesis according to which the mid-distance shot must be envisaged as a specific action, distinct from the game actions and the other shooting actions is supported here. The subject as a whole opens perspectives concerning didactic purposes for performance as well as for physical education.