Incensed at an anonymous quote in Tuesday's editions of The Times that was critical of his play Sunday, Kobe Bryant approached many of his teammates before a morning shoot-around and demanded to know the source.

The quote ? "I don't know how we can forgive him" ? was in response to Bryant's game in Sacramento, in which many Laker players privately believed he passed up shots to reestablish his importance to the offense.

Bryant insisted the Kings' defense had taken his game away, and Coach Phil Jackson supported the notion.

On Tuesday evening, Bryant arranged to appear on KLAC's Laker pregame show for the first time this season. He was interviewed by hosts Larry Burnett and Mychal Thompson, then took telephone calls from the public.

He told Burnett and Thompson he had addressed his teammates individually on the subject of Sunday's game and their reaction to it.

"Now, as a leader, I nip it in the bud immediately," Bryant said. "I went to practice this morning, I asked every single one of my teammates, 'Do you have a problem with what happened on Sunday? Do you think I did this on Sunday? Did you say this in the paper?' Every single one of them say they didn't say it.

"We're trying to win a championship. If somebody has an issue on this team, especially something as preposterous as that, I want to know. We need to talk about it, we need to resolve it, so we can move on."