Clippers Steal a March on the Suns, 106-94 : Pro basketball: L.A. equals its longest winning streak of the season with third consecutive victory. Smith scores 25 points.

March Madness of the Clipper variety got a little more maddening for the rest of the Pacific Division Monday night when the Phoenix Suns were inducted into a fast-expanding club.

This month alone, enough to put them back on pace to equal or break last season’s total of 30 victories, the Clippers have beaten, among others, San Antonio, Portland, Golden State and now the Suns, 106-94, at the Sports Arena. Charles Smith scored a game-high 25 points and Danny Manning and Ken Norman had 18 each for the Clippers.

Fudge and add the last day of February and another notable victim, Houston, the league’s hottest team, becomes part of the March list.

The loss, Phoenix’s second of the season at the Sports Arena, dropped the Suns three games behind idle Portland and 2 1/2 behind the Lakers for second place. It also ended a club-record eight-game winning streak on the road.

“We’re not going to win the division,” said Norman, who provided a spark off the bench in the third quarter and scored 13 of his points in the second half.

“I couldn’t care less who is going to win the division. I only care about us, and we’re going to come out and play hard every night.”

The rest of the Clippers have, too, lately, with telling results: six victories in nine games, equaling their longest winning streak at three and improving to 26-44.

The Clippers, who committed only 11 turnovers, went on a 12-6 run during a 4:06 stretch of the fourth quarter to open a 90-80 lead.

With Smith scoring 19 of his points in the first half on seven-of-10 shooting, the Clippers fell behind by eight in the second quarter, 35-27, only to come back. They tied the score, 36-36, on Manning’s short baseline runner with 5:34 remaining and played Phoenix close most of the rest of the way before intermission.

The Suns went on a 9-2 run in the final 2:31 of the half, turning a 44-44 tie into a 53-46 lead at the break. The backcourt of Jeff Hornacek and Kevin Johnson, who had 11 points and seven assists during the first half, accounted for the first six of the points, before Dan Majerle and luck stepped forward.

Majerle was behind the three-point line when Johnson penetrated down the line, a common sight for both teams on this night. But when the rebound was batted out, Majerle was in perfect position, picking the ball up and shooting as the buzzer sounded to give Phoenix the seven-point advantage.

That stood up for all of 2:34, by which time the Clippers had regained the lead as part of a 14-2 run to open the second half. At the end of a third quarter in which the Suns shot only 29.4% (five of 17), the Clippers led, 73-69.

Clipper Notes

Gary Grant, who was sidelined during Saturday’s victory at Golden State because of stiffness and soreness in his right knee, was a late scratch Monday after warming up and said he might ask to have arthroscopic surgery as soon as today. He was already scheduled to have a magnetic resonance imaging exam, an enhanced X-ray commonly used in knee injuries, to determine the full extent of the problem, but Grant, who had a similar problem while a senior at Michigan, wants to clear the joint of what he believes is loose tissue or cartilage as soon as possible. Trainer Keith Jones prefers to wait for test results before talking of the next step, but said there is a chance Grant has torn cartilage. In the event of surgery, Jones said, the Clippers might be without their starting point guard for as little as a game or two.

The 46 points by Charlotte in the fourth period in a 106-100 loss last Friday at the Sports Arena was five shy of the Clipper record for points in a quarter by an opponent, Denver’s 51 Jan. 6, 1982. The NBA record for points in a period belongs to the Clippers’ ancestors, the Buffalo Braves, who scored 58 against Boston Oct. 20, 1972.