Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is once again urging teammate Dwight Howard to play through his pain after claiming the center "worries to much" about fan and media criticism.
Howard has been out the past three games because of a torn labrum in his shoulder, re-aggravating an injury he initially suffered earlier in the season.
"We don't have time for (Howard's shoulder) to heal," Bryant said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with ESPNBoston.com's Jackie MacMullan. "We need some urgency."
Despite Howard's absence, the Lakers are winners of three straight games and are 23-26 on the season, currently putting them in the 10th seed of the Western Conference playoff race.
Bryant's interview with MacMullan came one day after he publicly challenged Howard, stating that playing with an injury is "something that you have to balance out and manage."
Bryant also asserted that Howard is preoccupied with how he is perceived by fans and media.
"Dwight worries too much about what people think," Bryant told MacMullan. "I told him, 'You can't worry about that. It's holding you back.' He says, 'OK, OK, OK,' but it's always hovering around him.
"He just wants people to like him. He doesn't want to let anyone down, and that gets him away from what he should be doing."
Bryant also acknowledged that Howard may not be accustomed to such a high standard that the Lakers are demanding.
"(Howard) has never been in a position where someone is driving him as hard as I am, as hard as this organization is," Bryant told MacMullan. "It's win a championship or everything is a complete failure. That's just how (the Lakers) do it. And that's foreign to him.
"When you think about it, there aren't many organizations that look at it that way. There are only two that can really honestly say that's what they live by -- Los Angeles and Boston."
Howard is listed as day to day, and his status is uncertain for Thursday's game against the Boston Celtics.
