As we stagger down the home stretch of the NBA’s injury-punctured season, the high-definition microscope is increasingly focusing on the fragile job security of Mike Montgomery (Friday night’s Warriors’ upset in Miami briefly reasserted him as the league’s smartest coach before last night’s marking down by the Magic), Dwane Casey, Sam Mitchell, Mike Woodson and, of course, Sonics interim Bob Hill.

His promotion is unimaginable if the idea is to regain the players’ undivided attention and unmodified respect. With all due disrespect, Seattle must find someone markedly more credible, someone immersed in upgrading the present instead of being fixated on the past, someone who knows his job is to coach and his place is to let management manage, someone far less in love with himself than Hill. Stan Van Gundy, for instance, that is, if he’s able to tear himself away from Danny Ainge’s family.

Depending on how the Wizards and the Ron Artest-aroused Kings do in the playoffs (curtains to their coaches if they don’t get that far) Eddie Jordan and Rick Adelman also must be regarded on shaky soil.

Tracy McGrady’s chronic back problem continues to give Jeff Van Gundy valid doctor’s note for the Rockets’ sub-season – at least that’s the way I’m writing it.

Could Leslie Alexander fire him anyway? He loves Van Gundy, but loves winning more. When this quirky owner is implicated, anything is possible and everything is probable.

Remember when Alexander was interviewing candidates prior to the 2003-04 season – Larry Brown, Paul Silas and Van Gundy? Brown was renovating a home in East Hampton at the time and that turned off Alexander, claims a confidant: “Les owns a home on the beach in the Hamptons. The thought of his coach owning one in the area as well disagreed with him.”

Could Van Gundy call it quits in frustration with years on his contract? I do believe we’ve all seen that family movie once or twice before.

Could Jerry Sloan finally decide to walk away from the Jazz after 18 seasons? What, and lose out on the near nightly entertainment provided by Larry Miller, who offers the kind of player evaluation other owners are too inhibited to give?

Could Bernie Bickerstaff command himself upstairs where he’d retain his GM duties? Such speculation is at least a year premature. According to the Bobcats reports you know that Kentucky’s Tubby Smith is being targeted to replace Bickerstaff are “completely without merit.” To Mitch Lawrence’s credit he apparently knows how to spell Bob Pettit.

Then there’s Lawrence Frank, singled out by sources as being in as much trouble, if not more, than any of the above. This is the situation coaches find themselves in when they have more to work with and fewer excuses.

At the same time, Frank hasn’t exactly played ball with management regarding free agents or acquisitions rounded up during the off season. Once he soured on Marc Jackson, Jeff McGinnis (surgically impaired), Lamond Murray, and, to a lesser degree, Scott Padgett for defensive deficiencies, Rod Thorn and Ed Stefanski were forced to scramble.

Moments before the Feb. 23 trade deadline, the Nets were able to dump Jackson’s guaranteed contract for next season on the Hornets, desperate for a big man after Chris Andersen was banned from the league for substance abuse. (This just in: Sources say Andersen suffered a setback. Seems he tested positive for Barry Bonds).

At any rate, Frank got very little from the players management recruited, leaving Nets and the coach awfully vulnerable. They might as well have failed their physicals a la Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Tractor Traylor.

Naturally, this brings us to Larry Brown. What if his bladder problem compels him to surrender the sidelines?

What if Isiah Thomas losses his sexual harassment suit? Doesn’t the league have a one-time amnesty for such cases or is that something else?

What if John Calipari switches from Memphis to a Big East school in the Metropolitan area?

Then again, what if Brown hires his friend as his first assistant?

What if Bernard King doesn’t recover from knee surgery and the Knicks can’t turn things around?

What if, wondered this space’s favorite comedienne Michael Colyar (appearing at Caroline’s), in tonight’s first segment of the new season, “Tony Soprano whacks James Dolan?”

*

In a span of six evenings, the Lakers have taken down the Pistons and Spurs, both rather handily.

Friday night the Purple Feign left the Alamo with a 100-92 win, snatching a 14-point first-half lead and never getting grief. The win was so easy there was no need to re-acquire Derek Fisher.

The Spurs had won the previous seven meetings with LA and entered having won eight of nine, including a 24-point pounding of the Suns at Phoenix the night before.

(Author’s Aside: The Suns, who had won their previous 11, played without Steve Nash [sprained right ankle] for the first time this season. Pardon me while I again vote for Nash as MVP, strictly because he’s caucasian, of course.)

Back to the Lakers, who began the weekend sitting seventh in the West. They’ve now won four of five despite getting only 29 points from Kobe Bryant, who had scored at least 40 in his previous quartet.

I knew it was just a matter of time before the team responded to the video teachings of Magic (“You don’t have to go to camp. I’ll bring camp to you”) Johnson.

For years Kenny Smith‘s family has held summer basketball camps in the south with his name on them, and here he is participating in the video as one of Magic’s (brain drained) instructors.

peter.vecsey@nypost.com