Favored 49ers Take Role of Underdog : NFC: San Francisco appears worried after two losses, but Giants’ Reeves isn’t buying it.

The San Francisco 49ers lost their two final regular-season games, three of their last four, appear defenseless in stopping the run, and Steve Young is not Joe Montana.

Indeed, it is all coming together for the 49ers, a game plan for success, and at just the right time.

Although they are favored today to defeat the New York Giants in the NFC divisional playoff game at Candlestick Park, the 49ers don’t think they have anyone’s respect. They have heard the talk, the predictions of an upset.

“I don’t think a lot of people expect us to beat the Giants, so in a sense the pressure is off of us,” 49er tackle Steve Wallace said. “We just have to have the mind set that no matter what happens, we’re going to sit in there and battle.”

The 49ers stumbled down the stretch, losing to Buddy Ryan’s Houston defense and Bubby Brister’s Philadelphia offense, and now are telling themselves that no one is giving them a chance to recover. This week’s theme: “It’s us against the nonbelievers,” and although that idea is nowhere near original, it is something new for a team that has won at least 10 games in 12 of the last 13 years.

“In the past, we’ve been a team that people think will dominate,” said Harris Barton, the other 49er tackle. “Now we feel as if our backs are against the wall.”

Giant Coach Dan Reeves, however, is not buying the 49ers’ routine.

“We’re going to catch a team that’s been working like crazy because they lost the last two games,” Reeves said. “They’ve got a tremendous amount of talent, but also a tremendous amount of pride. We’re going to catch them at a bad time, that’s for sure.”

The last time Reeves went up against the 49ers in postseason play was in Super Bowl XXIV, when he was still coaching the Denver Broncos. San Francisco triumphed, 55-10, with Montana throwing five touchdown passes, three to Jerry Rice.

Reeves said: “It’s important, not only to control the ball against a team like this, but to score, because they have a tendency to score a lot of points. We have to score touchdowns and not settle for field goals.”

The Giants will run the ball to keep it away from Young, Rice and Co.

The 49ers will also try to hog the ball with a short passing game and the running of Ricky Watters.

“We don’t want to get into a scoring contest with the 49ers,” New York quarterback Phil Simms said. “That is the last thing we want to do. If it’s like that, we won’t win. We will do what we always do.”

The Giants will run Rodney Hampton, and continue to run him as long as his body allows. In last week’s wild-card victory over Minnesota, Hampton ran 33 times for 161 yards.

“In past years, we’ve had some pretty good players, established players like Pierce Holt, Kevin Fagan and Michael Carter,” 49er Coach George Seifert said. “That’s a pretty good group of run defenders. We don’t have those players now. We’ve had our problems and we have yet to establish ourselves defensively.”

The 49ers gave up an NFL-high 4.5 yards per rush this season and the Giants have the league’s No. 1 rushing offense.

“The Giants are physical,” San Francisco safety Tim McDonald said. “They are going to take the ball to you and say, ‘Here it is. Either you stop it or we’re going to make you quit.’

“Last week they really punished Minnesota, a good defensive team. They made them look really bad. They did whatever they wanted to do with them.”

Hampton’s effective running has allowed Simms to re-establish himself as one of the league’s top quarterbacks. Simms, 38, has not had a pass intercepted in his last seven games.

“Phil has been great all year, doing the things that great quarterbacks have to do,” Reeves said. “He doesn’t make the mistakes that will cost you some ballgames, and he comes up with some big plays.”

The Giants had a league-low 17 turnovers this season, and as a result, led the league in time of possession, averaging 32 minutes 18 seconds per game.

“We would like to do the same thing that the Giants are doing,” Rice said. “They take the ball, use a lot of time, and with the type of defense they play, they are not going to give up the big play. We are going to have to work underneath, catch the ball, and then hold onto it and try to advance the ball up the field.

“To be honest, I feel like this is the biggest game of my career. You know, these guys have done a pretty good job on me.”

Rice has 27 catches for 454 yards and four touchdowns in six regular-season games against the Giants. But he has only 12 receptions for 147 yards and no touchdown in three playoff meetings.

“It’s going to be the ultimate challenge for the receivers to make something happen,” Rice said.

The Giants’ defense, which gave up the fewest points in the NFL, tied for 10th in defending against the pass. The Giants, however, did not play against Young this season, the league’s No. 1-rated quarterback.

Young threw a league-high 29 touchdown passes with 16 interceptions, but has yet to lead the 49ers into a Super Bowl. Young is 1-1 in playoff starts with six turnovers.

“You can take yourself to a level above, and you do that by going to a Super Bowl,” said Young, who continues to fight the Montana mystique. “Everyone wants to be a Super Bowl quarterback. Joe was the classic. Four times, four out of four. But then we went to the playoffs nine times during that time.”

With Young at quarterback, the 49ers scored more points than any other team in the league, but isn’t Dallas a prohibitive favorite to advance to the Super Bowl? Aren’t the Giants most people’s best bet to spring an upset this weekend?

“We’re playing a very sound football team and we haven’t played very sound,” Seifert said. “We haven’t played well. We haven’t blocked or tackled anybody with any efficiency and our timing has really been off. We haven’t done anything to establish ourselves as of late.”

The 49ers are down and out, or so they would like everyone to think.

“You’ve got people speculating a little bit and saying, ‘Well, they are not playing well,’ ” Rice said. “That’s great, because I feel we have an opportunity to go into this game and almost do the impossible because no one is expecting the 49ers to move on.”