NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : Notes : Injury May Sideline Scott for Entire Series

All the Lakers are saying is that guard Byron Scott, who missed the opener Tuesday night, will also miss Thursday night’s Game 2 of the National Basketball Assn. championship series with a partially torn left hamstring.

But Dr. Robert Kerlan, the Lakers’ physician, said before Game 1 there is a distinct possibility that Scott will miss the entire series against the Detroit Pistons after suffering the injury in practice here Monday.

“It might be (the entire series), but we’re just specifically committed to the first two games,” Kerlan said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to say more until we examine him again before Sunday’s game.”

Kerlan said Scott’s injury is more severe than the partially torn left hamstring that sidelined teammate Magic Johnson for nearly three weeks in February. If the finals go to the maximum seven games, Scott would have only two weeks in which to come back.

Scott said before Tuesday night’s series opener that he was injured in a collision with teammate David Rivers during a routine rebounding drill.

“He kind of grabbed my arm when I was going up for a rebound,” Scott said. “I came down a weird way, all on my left side. When I landed, I felt a pop in the left hamstring. It was just a freak thing that happened.”

Scott has had ice treatments, electronic stimulation and treatment with a device called a probe, which shoots jolts of electricity into the injured area.

“That probe is no fun,” Scott said. “But they are doing just about everything they can to help me. I’ve got the stimulation thing on 24 hours a day.”

Scott did not seem optimistic about being able to play in this series.

“In the situation I’m in, it might be that I won’t play at all,” he said.

“It’s disappointing, because I think we, as a unit, were ready for this series. But having this happen is devastating, personally. I was tossing and turning all last night, asking myself, ‘Why me?’ Those are questions you can’t answer.”

Scott said that intense workouts in Santa Barbara last week did not contribute to the injury.

“I was feeling great,” Scott said. “I was feeling in better shape for this series than during the regular season.”

What will Scott’s role be now?

“I’ll have to give the fellows some type of support, no matter how I feel,” he said. “I’m still part of the team. I’m kind of a Wes Matthews (former Laker bench-warmer and cheerleader) right now.”

When the Lakers arrived in the visiting team’s locker room in the Palace two hours before Tuesday night’s game, they were greeted by a dart board covered with pictures of the Pistons’ Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn.

The Lakers said they did not know who to thank for the gift.

Read my lips: One TV reporter was making the rounds in the Piston locker room asking several of the players how they would keep the win in perspective, to keep from getting too excited with three victories still needed.

In other words, “How do you tell yourself this is only one win?”

“Like this,” forward John Salley said. “ ‘It’s only one win.’ Now you try it.”

The reporter did.

“The English language is amazing, isn’t it,” Salley said.

The Pistons led at halftime, 55-48, but they braced for the worst. According to some of the Detroit scouting, the best was yet to come from the Lakers.

“They’re a good third-quarter team,” guard Joe Dumars said. “They usually put teams away in the third quarter. We didn’t want to have a letdown.”

The Pistons didn’t. The Lakers scored only 18 points in the period, their worst 12-minute output of the night.

Times staff writer Scott Howard-Cooper contributed to this story.