Barkley Stays Loose, Suns Stay Alive : Phoenix: Before the game, he talks up a storm. Then he goes out and plays the same way.

This looked like a job for the Joker.

Were the Suns a little tight? Does Jerry Buss charge for courtside seats? Does Chick Hearn have an opinion?

Let’s just say it’s not every day that Tom Chambers shoots an airball from 10 feet, as he did in the fourth quarter of Game 2.

Then there were Kevin Johnson’s post-Game 2 comments:

“You’ve got to give the Lakers credit. They won three in a row--I mean two in a row--I mean, uh, two in a row and beat us tonight, period.”

Fortunately for the Suns, they’re the only NBA roster that carries its own comic relief. Even Tom Lasorda has to send out for Don Rickles to do a guest shot in the Dodger clubhouse, but Paul Westphal has Charles Barkley, so his only problem is keeping out of the line of fire.

“People say we need to get focused and all that other stuff,” said Barkley, reflecting perhaps on Westphal’s pre-series boot camp in Prescott, Ariz. “We won 62 games. That’s pretty focused.”

Were the rest of the Suns worrying about being called names all summer?

How about a little gallows humor to cheer everyone up?

Barkley said he wasn’t dead, just in CPR.

He said he didn’t go out on the town here Monday night, but stayed in to play cards with his teammates.

“I had a fulfilling night with my teammates--in case I don’t see them for a while,” he said, laughing. “It was either team bonding or spending time together, just in case.”

Barkley did 40 minutes of this stuff in a bravura performance before Tuesday’s night’s game that preceded his bravura performance in Tuesday night’s game. Usually, he entertains everyone for 15 minutes and goes off to get dressed. This time, he joked and carried on as long as the dressing room was open.

“You know I hate the press,” he told writers, most of whom had picked the Suns in three games or fewer. “This is one . . . time I hope you guys are right. Even a blind acorn finds a nut.”

“Is that like water always rises to its level?” yelled Danny Ainge.

“Y’all know what I mean!” yelled Barkley.

Normally you’d say at this point that the Suns adjourned for the business at hand, but they played the most important game of their season in the same madcap vein.

Sure enough, Barkley took the first three-pointer he could see daylight for, as he had promised he would. It clanged off. The NBA has 26 coaches who say “thank you” every time Barkley fires from outside the free-throw line and Westphal, who says “Nice shot, Charles” when they go in.

Not to be discouraged--ever, from anything--Charles aired out another one in the second quarter and hit this one.

In successive possessions, he then blocked Doug Christie’s tomahawk dunk, went down to the other end, took another three-pointer and missed, stripped A.C. Green going up for a layup, then dunked on the resulting fast break.

The Forum crowd chanted impolite suggestions about Barkley, but the Suns would follow him anywhere. They also took every 20-footer they saw, but they hit some and hung tough in the fourth quarter, even after Barkley missed seven shots in a row.

“I’m definitely trying to loosen it up,” Barkley said late Tuesday night. “I’ll tell you what, my teammates helped me tonight. They helped me more than I’ve ever been helped in my basketball life.

“Oliver Miller and Richard Dumas told me, ‘You won us 62 games. If we’re going down, you go down firing.’ ”

He came, he saw, he ran his mouth, he backed it up. Tonight he can play cards again in Marina Del Rey.