Ceballos Gets Caught a Little Short by Suns : Lakers: With Campbell injured, Manning and Barkley have their way inside, 118-109.

PHOENIX —  Late Wednesday night, after his team’s 118-109 victory over the Lakers at America West Arena, Wesley Person of the Phoenix Suns found himself in an unfortunate mismatch, and no one was coming over to provide double-team help. It was Person, a rookie no less, trying to out-trash-talk Charles Barkley.

Barkley saw Person walking toward his locker and told the injured shooting guard to pick up the tape in front of his stall. It’s not mine, Person replied. Pick it up anyway, Barkley said.

“A scrub for three quarters,” Person said.

Said Sir Charles: “I’m a scrub for three quarters, but I can be there in the fourth quarter.”

Person had no comeback for that. He could only stare. Kind of like the Lakers.

With power forward Elden Campbell, who has been known to give Barkley and the Suns fits, sidelined because of the sprained left ankle he suffered late in Monday’s loss to the Bulls at the Forum, the Lakers had no answer for the Suns’ front line. Barkley finished with 22 points and 15 rebounds--getting 10 and five, respectively, in the fourth quarter to renounce scrub status--and Danny Manning had 30 points and 10 rebounds.

Much of the damage came at the expense of former Sun Cedric Ceballos, who got nine rebounds, along with 14 points but became a defensive liability through no fault of his own, unless you can blame someone for being too short. Phoenix exploited the absence of Sam Bowie, who went on the injured list the day before, and Campbell by forcing the 6-foot-7 Ceballos to play post defense against Manning, who is three inches taller, and Barkley, who is about 2 1/2 inches shorter but much stronger.

“I think we got a break with Elden Campbell not playing,” Barkley said.

It could have been worse for the Lakers, though. Antonio Harvey, who came in averaging 10.4 minutes a game, the second-fewest among those who have been on the roster all season, responded in his second start of 1994-95 with 18 points on seven-of-10 shooting, five rebounds and three blocks. The first start, Nov. 23 against Dallas, resulted in 16 points, six rebounds and three blocks.

With most players, maybe you could say he was getting the feel of America West Arena because he will be back in about 10 days for the slam dunk competition at All-Star weekend. Not Harvey. A player in his position--end of the bench, not power forward--wants to take advantage of a rare splurge of playing time, seeing as it comes so rarely.

“I think that’s real important,” Harvey said. “Guys can lose confidence when they’re not playing or playing few and far between. But you feel when you do play, you want to play all right.”

Which he did.

“I’m not into excuse-making,” Coach Del Harris said. “We certainly are hopeful that Elden can come back and play for us this weekend. We miss him. But when a guy like Antonio Harvey comes in and gives you 18 and five, you have to be happy.”

The Lakers had to find their pleasures somewhere. Looking to win here for the second time this season--L.A. and Cleveland are the only two teams to do it at all--they fell behind by 11 points late in the third quarter, recovered for a 90-all tie with 9:01 to play, but could never take the lead.

The Suns, the winningest team in the Western Conference at 35-9, had the lead back up to double digits on a Manning three-point basket with 1:40 remaining.

Laker Notes

Sedale Threatt played seven minutes Tuesday in his first appearance since Dec. 30 and reported no pain or other problems related to the stress fracture of the right foot. The biggest problem, he said, was being a bit winded. That capped the stretch of 14 games--13 on the injured list and the outing before because he played only two minutes--when starter Nick Van Exel was forced to play a great deal and Tony Smith went from primarily a shooting guard and small forward to backup point guard. Wednesday, Threatt increased to 12 minutes, contributing four points and five assists without a turnover. “I’d say he’s 70-80%,” Coach Del Harris said.