NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : Notes : Electrical Jolt Helps (and Hurts) Scott: ‘I Scream Out Loud’

As its name implies, the probe--a medical device that shoots jolts of electricity into an injured area--is not the most pain-free treatment for Laker guard Byron Scott’s partially torn left hamstring.

In fact, judging from Scott’s gnashing of teeth during treatment, you might be tempted to view it more as torture than treatment. But the probe’s effects in hastening healing might be the only way to get Scott into the National Basketball Assn. championship series.

Scott is also receiving heat and ice treatments, as well as mild electrical stimulation of his left hamstring. The probe, however, sends high-voltage electricity to the exact spot of the injury to stimulate the tendon.

As painful as it has been for Scott to sit and watch his Laker teammates go against the Detroit Pistons without him in the first two games, the probe treatments have been excruciating.

“It’s like being hit by lightning,” Scott said. “I’m just assuming how lightning feels. But it’s very, very painful. I scream out loud.”

But Scott said he knows the pain is necessary if he is to have any chance of playing. A less severe hamstring tear sidelined Magic Johnson for nearly three weeks in February, so the prognosis is not good for Scott, even with the probe treatments.

The probe, Laker trainer Gary Vitti said, simply is a more intense version of the electrical stimulation pads teams regularly attach to the injured limbs of players. The device is a metallic pole that, in Scott’s case, is directed at his hamstring.

“When we do the electrical ‘stim,’ we use wires and pads,” Vitti said. “All the probe is doing is the exact same thing, only you can pinpoint the tenderness and apply (electricity) directly to it.

“The wire that would normally go into the pad goes into the probe. You thrust the probe down deep.”

The probe helped Mark McNamara, the Lakers’ reserve center, return in about two weeks from a severely sprained ankle during the final week of the regular season. During most treatments, McNamara would bite on a towel and curse Vitti.

“There’s nothing to compare the probe to,” McNamara said. “It could be used as a torture device.”

Scott said he doesn’t handle the pain much better than McNamara. But, he added, his hamstring is slowly improving.

He said he still cannot lie on his back and lift his leg without pain.

“I can’t do anything without pain,” Scott said. “(But) it’s a lot less (painful) than a few days ago, so I’m encouraged. The first day, it improved a lot. After that, it’s been slow.”

Scott will be examined when the Lakers return to Los Angeles. He said Thursday night that he could not predict when--or if--he will play in the series.

“Not now,” he said.

The Michigan Treasury Department made $1,204 from the sale of four tickets to Game 2 of the final series.

The tickets, with a face value of $25 each, were seized during a drug raid last month in West Bloomfield, Mich. The law here requires that perishable items so seized be auctioned to the public.

The tickets, located 10 rows from courtside, were sold in a telephone auction Thursday. One pair brought $700, the other $504.

Laker General Manager Jerry West did not attend either of the first two games, which is no surprise. Along with executives from other NBA teams, he was in Chicago to watch workouts by most of the players who figure to be drafted June 27.

But he wouldn’t have been here in any event, since he never goes to road games during the NBA Finals, in keeping with a superstition--and necessity. “I don’t feel comfortable sitting there watching the big games,” he said. “I’m too nervous and need to be able to get up and walk around. When I’m not at the Forum, I can’t do it as easily.”

West will attend each home game, starting Sunday afternoon.

The rehabilitation of Clipper forward Danny Manning is coming along as scheduled, according to Stephen Lombardo, the Laker team physician and Manning’s surgeon.

Lombardo added, however, that he could not say when Manning might be able to return to basketball. He said such an estimate was about two months away.

Manning, the No. 1 draft choice last year, tore a ligament in his right knee Jan. 4 in Milwaukee.

Four years ago today, the Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics for the NBA title, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was unanimously voted the series’ most valuable player. At 38, he was the oldest to win that award.

Times staff writers Chris Baker and Scott Howard-Cooper contributed to this story.