Last Grasp?

One defeat from “pretty much a death knell,” Phil Jackson said he was awakened Friday night with thoughts of the rest of his life.

Essentially, his contract will expire with an NBA championship, his 10th as a coach, or playoff elimination, whichever comes first.

For three days, the Lakers have stood on the brink of the brink, down 0-2 to the San Antonio Spurs, and reminded often how close they are to failure.

Game 3 of the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals is this afternoon at Staples Center.

Inspired by his own reflections the previous night, Jackson gathered his players Saturday morning and reminded them, “There’s no future for this team beyond what the playoffs have for us.”

Of 14 players, eight can leave. Another has said he would retire if the team was significantly altered. The coach and his staff can go.

By nature a stay-in-the-moment spirit, Jackson dragged them all into tomorrow, one by one, calling their names, thumbnailing their careers, reminding them that what they came for still has a breath.

The Lakers are trying to become the eighth team in NBA history to lose the first two games of a best-of-seven series and still advance.

“We have a team with a nebulous future,” Jackson said. “I went down through the list of every single one of them, where they’re at, how old they were, what direction they’re going to go and what their future is. We only have four or five guys whose future to remain together here seems even possible. It’s a team that has to play for the now, for [today’s] game.”

Perhaps it is as basic as coming home, defending a pick-and-roll, making a free throw and returning to San Antonio tied, 2-2.

Maybe it was lost months ago, when Karl Malone’s injury and Kobe Bryant’s schedule and all of the new routines meant there’d be no chance to bond, and now it’s just too late. The Spurs are practiced and confident, the Lakers still aren’t where they’re supposed to be, literally on some possessions, and perhaps no amount of soul-searching will lead them to Tony Parker’s right hand.

Asked if he believed more was at stake for this group today than a single playoff game or series, Gary Payton curled his lip and said, “We don’t know. Everybody doesn’t stay in one place. I mean, we didn’t know what was going to happen in the beginning of the year. We didn’t know if anybody was going to be there in the end. Everybody signed on to see what this team could do, if a lot of guys got together. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the end. That’s just the way it is. A lot of people might not be here. That’s it. We’ve got to move on with our life. ...

“If we win or lose, we’re not going to stop living. I mean, we’re just going to have to do something else. We’ll just have to think about, as the years go on, saying, ‘What if this would have happened on this team?’ If it doesn’t happen, we can’t sit here and cry about it. We just have to say we missed a golden opportunity to do something.”

That, perhaps, is what pulled Jackson from a heavy sleep, what put Shaquille O’Neal into a full sweat Saturday morning, what got Malone shaking his head, unwilling to consider anything beyond this afternoon.

“I carry the burden of winning one game and that’s it,” he said. “I still believe in what we’re trying to do. Vacation, to me, is not even an option right now.”

Besides, Malone said with a smile, he’d been down 0-2 in series “before in my life, a lot of times.” As for if he’d won any, he said, “I don’t know. Two or three?”

No. None. But his Utah Jazz twice blew 2-0 leads.

None of which, apparently, tugs at Jackson’s famous poise. He was once believed a cinch to pass Red Auerbach with his 10th title, and now he’s left to win a game and delay the bells that would signal the end of the Lakers’ season.

“It’s kind of surprising that I’m not, but I’m not,” he said of feeling the pressure. “I feel very even about it. I had disrupted sleep last night. ... It was more something else, to do with my life going on in another direction. But I haven’t had this kind of tension [that] a lot of times I’ve received in the past that are normal in the playoffs as a coach.

“I think we know what we’ve done with this basketball club. We know we’ve done the things that are right for them. Now they have to push this thing to the limit. I’m quite at peace with that and I think they’re capable of doing it.”