Nevertheless, (Kobe) Bryant reached out to (Dwight) Howard early on Thursday to diffuse the drama, he told Yahoo! Sports. He fired off a text to message to insist that a part of his interview with the great Boston sportswriter, Jackie MacMullan, had been misconstrued in the public eye. Bryant swore he wasn’t calling out Howard about sitting three straight games with a shoulder injury, that he wasn’t questioning his toughness.

“Listen, I really think people ran in the wrong direction with those quotes,” Bryant told Y! Sports. “And I think that put Dwight on the defense, put him a little on edge. But that wasn’t the intention, nor the purpose.

“Honestly, I didn’t take a run at him.”

via Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports