Give the ball to Shaquille O'Neal in the clutch. Insult the good people of Sacramento, just for kicks. Then stand back and watch your stars get you another championship ring.

	Lakers coach Phil Jackson has eight NBA titles on his resumé.

Is Phil Jackson's job great, or what?

Actually, what Jackson does is not quite that simple. As above-it-all as he seems in the regular season, Jackson rolls up his sleeves in the playoffs and makes some significant changes in his coaching, at times even getting away from his sacred triangle offense.

But one thing that Jackson seldom changes is his demeanor. In the regular season, he doesn't micromanage and very little seems to faze him. In the postseason, when he's been more inclined to make tactical changes and does more coaching, he's the same picture of calm in the face of adversity. Last spring, in fact, then-Lakers exec Jerry West, a notorious worrier, constantly marveled at Jackson's peaceful demeanor as he led the team to the championship.

Along the way, Jackson insulted the Sacramento fans and the Kings' team owners and practically dared Scottie Pippen to lead the Blazers past the Lakers.

All on purpose.

"The way he conducted the playoffs for us, as a team, put a real sense of confidence in us," said LA's Rick Fox, reflecting back on the Lakers title run. "He instilled an air of belonging. We had the regular-season best record. But Phil's approach was for us to go out and make our way to the title, as opposed to sitting back and waiting for things to happen. With this team, before, we waited for someone to hand us a win and we lost that way. He's had such a long-standing rate of success, we were able to draw off him and find what works and what doesn't work. He's very effective in that type of situation. He really knows how to let the thing drive itself when it's going well."

	Bryant

	O'Neal

The Lakers were heading for the ditch when Portland won Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals last season. That tied the best-of-seven series at 1-1 and stole away LA's homecourt edge. For a team that rolled to 67 wins, this was the kind of adversity it never had faced. Not even when the Kings forced a deciding fifth game in the first round.

"When it was 1-1, other guys might have panicked," Fox recalled. "But Phil had a calming effect. He walked in the next day as if nothing really happened, other than we lost the game. Some coaches would have come in angry and created a whole tense setting. Players don't react well to that kind of atmosphere, at all. All it does is get the guys anxious and on edge. But Phil kept the air real calm. His whole basic approach was, there's no reason to panic. This is going to be a long series. And he was right."

Jackson will send specific messages to individual players throughout the playoffs or regular season. In the regular season, he often buys each player a different book. In the playoffs, he might splice scenes from movies into game tape to get his point across. Or, he'll get to his unofficial interpreter, Ron Harper, to give the team a scolding in the newspapers.

"Phil understands that sometimes you need a buffer," said ex-Laker John Salley, who also played for Jackson in Chicago. "You don't always want to hear the father-figure talking. Sometimes, you need to hear your older brother saying it."

That even applies to this regular season, when Harper took his teammates to task after a bad home loss to the Miami Heat. Now whether that changes if the Lakers ever fall behind in a series, who knows? All of last spring, they were either always ahead or even. In the past, in the rare times the Bulls fell behind or didn't play well -- after losing Game 1 in 1998 in Utah and losing Game 4 in Seattle in 1996 -- Jackson was grumpier than normal, often baring his fangs to the media.

But he always seems to take a very casual approach to the 82-game regular season, and especially the early months. If there ever was a season when that should have changed, it was this one. The Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant war exploded early and often raged. Yet, as all of LA wondered what Phil was doing and there were calls for him to step in to broker a truce, not once did he get his two superstars together for a sit-down to hash things out. His attitude seemed to be, as long as they work it out before the playoffs, it'll be fine.

	“	When it was 1-1, other guys might have panicked. But Phil had a calming effect. He walked in the next day as if nothing really happened, other than we lost the game. Some coaches would have come in angry and created a whole tense setting. Players don't react well to that kind of atmosphere, at all. All it does is get the guys anxious and on edge. But Phil kept the air real calm. His whole basic approach was, there's no reason to panic. This is going to be a long series. And he was right. ”
		— Rick Fox

Veteran Jackson-watchers weren't amazed in the least. How many times has he sat idly, refusing to call timeout, as the Bulls or Lakers fell behind by wide margins. Even in Game 2 of the conference finals against Portland last season, Jackson looked to be dozing during the Blazers' decisive run. Afterward, he even made the rare concession that he made a mistake and admonished himself for not stepping in to call timeout. But normally, he thinks other coaches overmanage games and prefers having his players work it out themselves.

You might even see it in the these playoffs. Sometimes, during one of those instances, long-time assistant coach Tex Winter will look over at his boss and say, "You better start coaching now."

In the regular season, Jackson coaches as if everything that happens, good or bad, is part of his master plan. No question he has more patience than most coaches, as we saw this season with his handling of Isaiah Rider. That just got to the point where even Jackson got worn out by Rider's problems. Until the very end, though, Jackson had every intention of making it work, even if Rider wasn't cut out for the triangle.

About the only thing that Jackson really pays attention to, in terms of the regular season, is finishing with the homecourt advantage throughout. Coaching players like Michael Jordan and Pippen in Chicago, and Shaq and Kobe in L.A., finishing with the best record overall is not normally a problem.

This season, the grand plan didn't quite work out, as San Antonio has claimed the NBA's No. 1 record. But considering how much turmoil the Lakers had this season, starting with Shaq vs. Kobe and including the fact that there were three new starters, finishing with the No. 2 record in the torture-chamber of a conference still is quite an accomplishment. Injuries, along with Rider's unreliability and a younger bench, forced Jackson to do more experimenting with his rotation than ever. That was a stark contrast to last season, when he had a rock-solid rotation and hardly varied from game to game, after Bryant came back from an early wrist injury.

But while he's given more minutes this season to Mark Madsen, Devean George, Tyronn Lue and Mike Penberthy, he's already scaling back for the postseason. Few of those four will see any time. The big change comes with Derek Fisher replacing Harper as a starter, as Harper hopes to come back from injuries in the first round, but will not be rushed.

"You've got to give Phil his due," said the Knicks' Glen Rice, who played for Jackson last season. "They've had problems with Shaq and Kobe. But Phil made it work last season and he gets his role players to really accept their roles."

That's high praise from Rice, who had his battles with Jackson over how he was used in the triangle as the third option. As the Lakers found out, Jackson is prone to be less rigid in the playoffs when it comes to his offense. He even ditched some of the triangle offense to use Bryant more in pick-and-rolls. And, he went out of his way to call special plays for Rice, giving him screens and shots in the Lakers' critical Game 4 win at Portland.

"In the regular season, I didn't get that treatment," Rice said. "I hardly got a chance to post up.That's just the way he handled it. But you can't argue with his success, can you?"

Not when you measure it in championship rings.

Mitch Lawrence, who covers the NBA for the New York Daily News, writes a regular NBA column for ESPN.com.