You have a series to win -- who will be your coach?

Take this season's 16 playoff coaches, remove the actual teams they coach from this imaginary equation and ask yourself: Who would I want guiding my favorite team through a hypothetical seven-game series?

While you ponder that one, we humbly present our personal rankings for your consideration.

Coaching Rankings Rank   Coach 1 Phil Jackson Jackson always shoots to the top of these sorts of lists because of the offense he employs: The triangle sets don't actually involve any play-calling, which makes the options nearly infinite. When paired with Jackson's sterling touch with the defensive side, and the occasional non-triangle set coming out of a timeout, you're usually left with a contender. That first part is important, because in Jackson's last significant playoff loss (the Finals in 2004), it wasn't the offense (and the hackneyed "Shaq and Kobe won't share the ball" bit) that did him in. It was a lack of horses on defense. But when the defensive horses are in place, and Jackson's evolving game plan on that end is set, there's no stopping any team that he coaches. This year? I'm not seeing any horses on these Lakers. Dogs, perhaps, but no horses. 2 Gregg Popovich If your life depended on asking a coach to draw you up a successful play, you should probably take some time to reevaluate your lifestyle. But should your poor choices lead you to that harrowing situation, hand the clipboard to Coach Pop. Outside of Larry Brown, no other coach can call gems out of a timeout or dead ball quite like Popovich. He has the attention of his players, faith in his judgment and the ability to admit semi-failure when things aren't going as expected. Pop is simply a brilliant tactician whom the NBA is lucky to have in its ranks. 3 Pat Riley Riley was nothing short of masterful during last season's championship run, making multimillionaire athletes feel like an insular group of underdogs with an insatiable need to shock the world. And somehow, even with that payroll and the hundreds of magazine covers already afforded to Shaq and Dwyane Wade, the ploy worked. A year later, with the gaudy jewelry having been presented and the world dutifully shocked, will Riles have enough in the motivation tank to work the magic again? And, after a second straight season in which Riley stayed away from the bench for weeks at a time, will the players even give him a chance to pull the rabbit out of the hat? I'd have a hard time listening to the guy, but I wouldn't doubt that he could convince me into damn near anything. 4 Avery Johnson Players want to work for this guy, they want to sacrifice for him and they can't wait to do what he instructs. And, really, why wouldn't they? After all, hard work, sacrifice and a willingness to listen to people who are smarter than you (people like Avery Johnson) can't help but encourage a successful atmosphere. Johnson sopped up coaching knowledge like a sponge during his 16 seasons as a player, and he might be well on his way toward earning the first of what could be numerous coaching titles. 5 Mike D'Antoni Who doesn't like to run, jump and shoot a lot? Save for a few Knicks, most NBA players would lop a third of their salary off the books to run with these Suns. All D'Antoni asks in return for letting his players run, jump and shoot a lot is their undivided attention when he tries to steer the conversation toward that night's defensive game plan and the unorthodox (but needed, especially with that defensively challenged roster) ways he attempts to stop the opposition. The NBA's coaching fraternity is truly full of lovely gents, but the game would be a whole lot better if more sideline stalkers learned a little from D'Antoni's ability to trust. 6 Jeff Van Gundy On paper or in person, Van Gundy's Rockets don't look like the best defensive team in basketball. And yet, they spent the bulk of 2006-07 as the league's most efficient defensive outfit, mainly because JVG can barely give a rip about much of anything beyond stopping the other team. It's what got this team through injuries to Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, and that defensive mind-set could be enough to get the Rockets to the Western Conference finals. 7 Jerry Sloan The ultimate "damn the torpedoes" guy, Sloan is so bent on staying true to his own ideals and ascertinations at the end of the day that his intractable nature sometimes lays waste to his team's chances. Sometimes. Or, not very often. OK, how about, "quite infrequently." Sloan plays the guys who stand up to him, demands ball movement and solid spacing on offense, and doesn't take kindly to giving up open shots on the other end. 8 Don Nelson Why does any team Nelson coaches have a chance at pulling out a win or two in any playoff series? Mismatches, my friends. Myriad mismatches. Nellie sees them at every turn. He takes advantage of them, runs the same set of Red Auerbach-era Celtics plays bent on attacking whatever weakness or advantage he spies, and turns players who may have averaged 4.3 points in the regular season into the game's leading scorer by halftime. Of course, over a long playoff series, opposing coaches have a way of getting around these mismatches, and that usually leaves Nellie in the cold. Still, it's a fun run while it lasts.