TrueHoop reader Michael watches a lot of games very closely, and sends in his thoughts from time to time. (It's a good thing he's on the West Coast, because this kind of rewinding and rewatching must have kept him up late.)

He saw Kobe Bryant make that key pass to Derek Fisher for the big, long two-pointer, and thought: hmm ... that seemed pretty selfless. Wonder how that came about. Michael writes:

The Rockets obviously ended up winning but that play stood out to me because Kobe Bryant had scored eight of the Lakers' last 10, and finished with 45 points.

Bryant had Rockets defenders on their heels all game and shot 27 free throws.

We have heard and seen in the past that Kobe trusts and respects Fisher a lot, possibly more than anyone else on the team (besides himself).

I re-watched that play in slow-motion, and here's what I learned: The moment Kobe's drive created space for Fisher to shoot, he passed him the ball. He didn't pump-fake, try to create his own shot, or wait for Fisher's defender to double-team (he was running over). He got Fisher the ball as quickly as possible, and Fisher knew exactly what to do.

Did I read too much into this? I decided to re-watch the entire fourth quarter and take notes, paying special attention to how Bryant used his teammates.

Let it be known that Bryant played the entire fourth quarter. On almost every play, the ball got into Kobe's hands with him creating offense for himself. Here are the exceptions:

* Three times the Lakers were in transition.
* Four times a half-court offense was run entirely without Bryant touching the ball. Two of those times were missed jumpers. Of the other two, one was a pick and roll with Derek Fisher that got Ronny Turiaf a dunk, the other was Turiaf getting fouled while posting up.
* Seven times Kobe passed the ball, got it back and made a move.
* Five times Kobe passed the ball, and didn't get it back.

To try to get an idea of how Kobe's seeing his teammates, let's examine how these passes turned out.

* Five passes to Luke Walton. Four times it comes back to Bryant, one time Walton gets fouled.
* Two passes to Jordan Farmar, leading to two missed jumpers by other players.
* Twice to Ronny Turiaf. One time it comes back, the other time it's a missed jumper.
* Once to Maurice Evans, who passes it right back.
* Once time to Andrew Bynum, who passes it back.
* Once to Derek Fisher for the game-tying basket.

After considering how productive Bryant was on his own, and how little came out of his passes, one could make the argument that in his head, most of his teammates were not worth passing to with the game on the line.

In almost every case -- before that pass to Fisher -- Bryant ends up seeing a missed jumper or getting the ball back anyway.

It's the first game of the season. It's a tiny sample size. Fisher might have just been the open guy. But might this be a sign that Fisher is the Laker teammate who Bryant trusts more than the others in this situation?