NBA PLAYOFFS : Prodigal Suns Complete Return : Game 5: Phoenix survives Laker rally and pulls away in overtime, 112-104.

Sixty-eight seconds stood between them and a glorious upset, not much time in real life, but an eternity in playoff basketball.

If they had held on for that last 1:08, the Lakers would have made NBA history.

“I’d love to have been able to take the ball and bury it in the back yard at that point,” Laker Coach Randy Pfund said, shaking his head.

Unable to bury the ball or the Phoenix Suns, the Lakers were left by the first-round wayside Sunday when baskets by Charles Barkley and Dan Majerle tied the score and Byron Scott’s three-point attempt with two seconds to play hit the rim. Given a reprieve, the Suns won the best-of-five series with a formidable overtime charge led by reserve Oliver Miller, 112-104.

“That was a hell of a series, wasn’t it?” said Barkley, who led all scorers with 31 points and tied Miller for the team rebounding lead at 14.

“I tell you, as an athlete, it doesn’t get any better than this,” Barkley said after the Suns became the first team to rally from a 2-0 deficit incurred on its home court in a best-of-five series. “You go out there and lay it on the line and just play. I feel like I’ve been in a fight.”

He paused, a weary smile crossing his face. “I won, though,” he said. “But it was a hell of a series.”

It was nearly the first series won by an eighth-seeded team since this playoff format was created. The sellout crowd of 19,023 at the America West Arena feared its cheers would be wasted after Sedale Threatt’s solo, driving layup capped a 13-point rally and gave the Lakers a 95-91 lead with 1:08 to play.

“Before this series, everybody thought the Lakers would be easy,” said Kevin Johnson, who had 24 points and 13 assists. “Charles and myself, we wanted to play the Clippers so we could get a first-round test, but the Lakers provided that.”

The Suns passed that test when they tied the score and pulled away in overtime, sending the Lakers home after the first round for the second consecutive year for the first time in their history. But few considered this a failure.

“No matter what the expectations were after our regular season,” Scott said after almost certainly his last game as a Laker, “we had a pretty good year if it came down to this.”

It came down to Barkley’s 17-foot baseline shot cutting the Lakers’ lead to 95-93 and after a miss by Threatt, Barkley pulled down the rebound. Phoenix inbounded the ball with 25.9 seconds to play and 23 on the shot clock and Dan Majerle, who had climbed out of a hospital bed to play after a bout of flu, made a 17-footer to tie the score with 13.6 seconds to play.

“I’m beginning to think the guy doesn’t like me,” Pfund said, remembering the last-second three-pointer by Majerle that gave Phoenix a 115-114 victory on April 6. “He keeps throwing daggers in my heart.”

The Lakers had a chance to strike the last blow, though, when Threatt found Scott on the right side for the potential winning shot.

“It was a pretty good look,” Scott said. “I thought I would get it a little bit sooner, but I got the ball later than I thought. That enabled Dan (Ainge) to be there (to defend).”

Said Pfund: “You have to get the shot, that’s the important thing. We had two guys who were going good, Sedale and James (Worthy). I thought Sedale bringing it to Byron was a good option . . . that was a good shot. I’ll live with that. I thought the game was decided on a couple of loose-ball situations, when Charles seemed to have his way in the paint pretty well. They got it too easy, that’s what bothers me. The first one (Barkley’s basket to cut the lead to 95-93) and the second one was a dig-out scramble.

“We’ve never, here in this organization, been happy with losing and that’s what we did, and from that standpoint, I’m bitterly disappointed. But that was like a championship fight in the first round, and I don’t think many people expected anything but a early knockout or a quick decision. The guys played great. We had our chances today, so from that standpoint, it wasn’t meant to be.”

The overtime was a showcase for the Suns, who will face the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday at the America West Arena.

Phoenix rode its last-second success in regulation to an 11-0 run, taking a 102-95 lead before Scott made two free throws. Miller led the way with nine points, five rebounds and a blocked shot, a display the Lakers couldn’t counter.

Said Worthy, who had 24 points to lead six Lakers in double figures: “I think the Phoenix Suns learned something from this. This was a dogfight for them. They’ll be ready from here on out.”

Said Green, who had a career-high 19 rebounds: “It was serious. It was fun. It was competitive, intense, emotional. You sort of dismiss the regular season with all its ups and downs and you remember how this went.”

Laker Notes

Asked if he believed his Laker career was over, Byron Scott said: “Pretty much. I’ll be thinking about it more in a couple of weeks. I’ll go down to Orange County with my family for some R & R and think it over. But I’m inclined to believe that yes, I’ve played my last game as a Laker.” . . . Elden Campbell, who had nine points during a first-quarter 13-0 Laker run, sat out five minutes of the third quarter because of a muscle spasm in his right hamstring. Campbell, who guarded Charles Barkley most of the series, had his thigh heavily taped the rest of the game but said it didn’t affect his play. He finished with 17 points, behind James Worthy’s 24 and Sedale Threatt’s 18, and nine rebounds, second to A.C. Green’s 19. “You’re never happy walking away from a loss,” Campbell said. “There’s nothing good about it.” . . . Worthy became the 12th player in NBA history to score 3,000 playoff points. . . . Only once before have the Lakers lost a playoff series after taking a 2-0 lead, losing the 1969 NBA finals to the Boston Celtics in seven games.

* BAD MEDICINE: Majerle and Miller aren’t what the doctor ordered for Lakers. C10