Howard has missed the past three games because of a torn labrum in his shoulder, aggravating an injury he initially suffered earlier this season.

Despite winning the three games Howard has missed, the Lakers (23-26) are 10th in the Western Conference playoff race. They also will be without star forward Pau Gasol, who has a tear in the plantar fascia of his right foot, an MRI revealed Wednesday. The Lakers fear Gasol could be sidelined four to six weeks, a source told ESPNLosAngeles.com.

“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.”

The interview with MacMullan came one day after Bryant publicly challenged Howard, stating that playing through 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 speculated that Howard, in his first season with Los Angeles, may not be accustomed to the Lakers’ standards.

“(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 preached patience in a recent interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, pointing to the fact that Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal needed three years before winning a championship with the Lakers.

But the 34-year-old Bryant, who is averaging 27.6 points per game in his 17th NBA season, is approaching this season with more desperation.

“We don’t have three years,” Kobe said. “We’ve got this year.”

Howard is listed as day to day, and his status is uncertain for Thursday’s game against the Boston Celtics.

The Lakers are hopeful Gasol’s injury will prompt Howard to return “sooner than later,” a team source told ESPNLosAngeles.com.

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“I want to play,” Howard said after participating in shootaround in advance of the Los Angeles Lakers games against the Boston Celtics on Thursday. “I mean, why wouldn’t I want to play? But, at the same time, this is my career, this is my future, this is my life. I can’t leave that up to anybody else because nobody else is going to take care of me. So, if people are pissed off that I don’t play or if I do play, whatever it may be, so what? This is my career. If I go down, then what? Everybody’s life is going to go on. I don’t want to have another summer where I’m rehabbing and trying to get healthy again. I want to come back and have another great year. That’s what I want to do.”

Howard is considered a game-time decision after missing the last three games with a sore right shoulder from aggravating his torn labrum in the Lakers’ 92-86 loss to the Phoenix Suns at the start of their current seven-game road trip.

Kobe Bryant publicly challenged Howard to return, telling ESPNBoston.com’s Jackie MacMullan on Wednesday, “We don’t have time for (Howard’s shoulder) to heal … We need some urgency.”

Howard dismissed Bryant’s stance.

“That’s his opinion, that’s it,” Howard said. “He’s not a doctor, I’m not a doctor. That’s his opinion.”

Bryant said that his comments on Wednesday weren’t meant to turn up the pressure on Howard in light of the news that Pau Gasol has a torn plantar fascia in his right foot.

“There’s an urgency to be out there, but it’s not at the cost of making his shoulder worse,” Bryant said after shootaround. “I’ve always said if he was healthy enough to play and there was a situation where he wasn’t going to make it any worse then he should be playing. There should be an urgency about that, but I don’t think I said anything that was different (then he said before).”

Bryant wasn’t the only one of Howard’s teammates to clamor for the All-Star center’s return, however.

“I think everyone has got to play through some pain in this league and I’m not sure where Dwight exactly with his (injury), but hopefully he’s ready to come back soon,” Steve Nash said. “I think it’s inevitable he’s going to feel some discomfort and pain.”

Metta World Peace spoke up in support of Howard, citing how effective he has been while coming off offseason back surgery.

“He’s doing great and (he is) a great teammate,” World Peace said. “He’s out there, he had a couple 20-20 games and is averaging 18 and 11 or something like that playing hurt coming off that back surgery. I would say he’s a soldier and I’m not going to question his injury. He’s hurt to me. We have to go out there and we have to hold it down for him.”

Howard said that Gasol’s injury has not sped up his timeline to return and added that the way he feels he mishandled his back injury last season in Orlando is shaping how he deals with his shoulder this year.

“I don’t want that situation to happen again,” Howard said. “Last year I wanted to prove and show people that I can play through injuries, but the back is something serious and I don’t want that to happen again.”

Howard was asked if he could see his shoulder injury becoming worse if he gets back on the court.

“Yes, (with) the way I play,” Howard said. “The post is not an easy position. You’re pushing guys (who weigh) 260-270 (pounds) and you have to use a lot of force to do that. If play tonight, we’ll see how I feel later on. If I don’t, we’ll just have to move forward.”

Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said that the Lakers will likely go with a small starting lineup of Earl Clark at center and World Peace and Antawn Jamison at the forward spots if Howard cannot play against the Celtics.

“If we just go out there and play team basketball, move bodies, help, hedge on screens, box out, sacrifice and at the end of the game it’s just going to be a team game and there’s five guys on the floor, so, I don’t think we have positions,” said World Peace, who could be asked to play some backup center along with rookie Robert Sacre. “Kobe could be switched off on the center. It’s just five guys playing basketball at this point.”

D’Antoni said the decision to whether to play or not ultimately rests with Howard.

“I think he’s cleared (by the medical staff), but he’s cleared (fully) when the pain goes away, so he tells us when the pain goes away,” D’Antoni said.

D’Antoni said he has not had any discussions with team management about adding another big man in the interim with Gasol flying back to L.A. on Thursday morning to meet with Lakers team doctors as well as a specialist, but he plans to meet with general manager Mitch Kupchak in Miami on Saturday to talk things over.

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