Dwight Howard continues to play through various injuries

The injury won’t heal in the foreseeable future, and that means Howard’s widely-known pain will persist for the rest of this season.

Yes, Dwight Howard’s nightmare season continued with another underwhelming game Thursday night in Boston, and that was after two days full of Kobe, Dwight, and Steve Nash bickering back and forth in the media. So what was the next move?

It began with Mike D’Antoni in the postgame interview, telling us that Dwight had actually been cleared by doctors to play “for a while” before Thursday. Howard’s response, via Comcast Sports Net New England:

Bryant also reached out to Howard via text to attempt to defuse the situation, but his quotes to MacMullan on his teammate seemed pretty clear. Bryant said that the Lakers “don’t have time” for the big man’s shoulder to heal and that there needs to be “some urgency.” That appears to be quite the blatant call-out.

Can Kobe and Dwight put aside their differences and come together to get the Lakers back in contention? Stay tuned.

Silver Screen And Roll, SB Nation’s Lakers blog, has an in-depth look at how the team responded to Gasol’s injury on Tuesday here.

Howard has already missed six games this season with the shoulder injury, on top of lingering concerns about his back, which is still recovering from off-season surgery. He’s also complained of lingering damage to his nerves, revealing that he occasionally can’t feel his legs while playing.

Initially, the Lakers’ medical staff said that their center was day-to-day. Los Angeles is in the middle of a seven-game road trip, so any time missed by Howard could be devastating. The Lakers already lost the first game of that trip and have a 20-26 record.

Howard first injured the shoulder in early January and missed three games before returning to the lineup. In 43 games for Los Angeles, Howard is averaging 16.5 points and 11.9 rebounds per game.

Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard has injured his troubled right shoulder yet again and has left the game vs. the Phoenix Suns.

As he went up for a shot following a rebound, Howard was hit on the arm and immediately grabbed his ailing shoulder in obvious pain. He left with just over six minutes remaining in the game.