NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : Magic Says Pain Won’t Stop Him : Laker Star Would Play Despite Injury, but Not at Risk of Career

The Lakers flew from Detroit to Los Angeles Friday morning in a commercial DC-10, not in an air ambulance equipped with cots and staffed by nurses.

But with Magic Johnson and Byron Scott nursing hamstring injuries, and their teammates soothing bruised egos, the Lakers certainly seemed in need of assistance. In fact, Scott and Johnson were taken to the boarding gate in a motorized cart.

Before Sunday, when the Lakers and the Detroit Pistons will play Game 3 of the National Basketball Assn. championship series, Johnson and Scott will have received all available treatment in hopes that one or both guards will be able to play.

Friday morning, at an impromptu news conference on the plane, Johnson tried to sound encouraged about his status, which the Lakers are calling questionable.

“Maybe I’m hoping and wishing it is (feeling better),” said Johnson, who aggravated the left hamstring injury he had suffered in February. “We’ll just have to wait and see. It’s a situation where it’s still sore.

“There’s always hope. I got to believe in that. You’re hoping for anything.”

Johnson’s injury has been diagnosed as a strain, less severe than Scott’s partially torn left hamstring. He said that he will try to play Sunday, even if his injury renders him somewhat immobile. But he also said he will not risk shortening his career to play.

“If I’m going to go out there and hurt the team, then I don’t want to be out there,” Johnson said. “But if I can play well enough to help them, I will. That’s what I got Dr. (Robert) Kerlan and (trainer) Gary Vitti for. If that was to happen--like hurting myself for next year--I wouldn’t go out there.”

Not knowing whether he will have either starting guard, Laker Coach Pat Riley said he has to prepare for the worst. Riley’s options, it seems, are to start Tony Campbell and Michael Cooper at guards, or move James Worthy to a shooting guard and start Orlando Woolridge in Worthy’s small-forward spot. This much is certain, if Johnson and Scott cannot play, Campbell and rookie point guard David Rivers will.

“I don’t know yet,” Riley said of his lineup possibilities. “There are a lot of alternatives. I could go big or small. I’ll have to sit down and think about it.”

Riley might be leaning to a smaller lineup simply to match up better with the Pistons’ guards. In Game 1, Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Vinnie Johnson combined for 65 of Detroit’s 109 points. In Game 2, the three accounted for 72 of Detroit’s 108 points, Dumars leading with 33.

“We’ve got to find a way to control their guards,” Riley said. “That’s the main thing. We’ve been playing 6-9 and 6-8 guys against 6-2 guys, and it’s physiologically impossible to keep up with that quickness. They are just burying their shots.”

The Pistons, who made only 42.4% of their shots in the Eastern Conference finals, have improved to 54.8% after two games in the finals. Thomas, Dumars and Johnson have shot 57.7%.

“Randy (Pfund, a Laker assistant coach) said before this that they were due to break out,” Riley said. “I guess they have.”

Riley said that, being home now, it is the Lakers’ turn to break out.

Is that possible without Johnson or Scott in the lineup?

“People started talking about our courage and heart,” Riley said. “But this team, all they really did was lose two games. It doesn’t matter how they lost them.

“(The Pistons) did their job and won two games at their place. I don’t want thoughts of moral victories by saying that they couldn’t put us away (in Game 2). If we get a win Sunday, we are back in it and give them something to think about. We can do that.”

In five games without Johnson this season, the Lakers went 3-2. One of the losses was to the Pistons by eight points at the Forum on Feb. 14. The other was to the Golden State Warriors on Feb. 8, the night Johnson injured his hamstring while trying to avoid Manute Bol on a layup.

They got the three victories against two teams with sub-.500 records--the Portland Trail Blazers and the Sacramento Kings--and the Boston Celtics, who finished 42-40.

“I have confidence,” Riley said. “Until I find out whether Earvin can play--and from the information I’ve received, he’s doubtful--I have to move forward and prepare to play without him.”

Cooper said the Lakers will have to alter their offensive priorities drastically if neither Johnson nor Scott plays in Game 3.

“I think that’s the way it’s going to have to be,” he said. “The guys who haven’t been called upon to score are going to have to. I could get used to (shooting more) real quick.”

Cooper said that the current state of the Lakers reminds him of the 1983 championship series against the Philadelphia 76ers. In that final, Worthy, then a rookie, was already out with a broken leg. Bob McAdoo suffered a pulled hamstring in the Western Conference finals, and Norm Nixon had a separated shoulder.

The Lakers were swept in four games.

“That flashed across my mind,” Cooper said. “But we can’t think about that now. We just got to play with what we got.”

Though crestfallen because of the injuries to Johnson and Scott, the Lakers apparently aren’t seeking sympathy.

“I’ve seen it happen to other teams, teams that we played against,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said. “We’ve been pretty lucky not to have many injuries over the years. We’ll let fate--or whatever--do what it will and see what happens. I know we’ll give our best effort.”

GREEN FOR GREEN

Laker forward A.C. Green is hoping to improve his market value against the Pistons. Story, Page 11

THEY’RE HAMSTRUNG

A look at the injuries to starting guards Magic Johnson and Byron Scott. Story, Page 10