EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. ? Go ahead. Just try to drive a stake through the coach’s heart. It won’t stick. It hasn’t stuck now for seven years. Jim Fassel dodged the fatal blow again Sunday, avoided a sad ending to his season and to his Giant career.

The man who will not go away, who will not be buried, has himself a .500 team after a 31-28 overtime victory over the Jets. The win was an ugly, hilarious, entertaining show, and now the Giants still are hanging around the NFC East race.

Fassel has managed this mediocre record with a bunch of nervous wrecks for players who have thrown away four leads in the final minutes of four games.

Do you want to blame Fassel for blowing this two-touchdown bulge? You can. These final-quarter meltdowns can’t all be coincidence. Sunday, his defense gave up too much, too quickly, in the fourth quarter — 153 yards on two drives that Chad Pennington managed in a total of only 6 minutes, 37 seconds.

So, yes, some of this melodrama was Fassel’s fault. But then, wasn’t it also Fassel who went out of his way to find kicker Brett Conway after his miss? Wasn’t Fassel choreographing the winning, 53-yard drive? Bad Fassel. Good Fassel. Forever optimistic Fassel.

“I’ll find another occupation if I can’t get a team to fight,” Fassel said.

The Giants fought. Don’t kid yourself, it helped them that they were playing the Jets. When it comes to bad karma, to shooting yourself in the cleats, nobody can top the guys in green.

The Giants have a football season today only because the Jets let them have one. Herm Edwards never will explain away that 51-yard field-goal attempt in overtime, which immediately gets filed into Jet lore as one of the most boneheaded, ill-conceived plays in franchise history.

The Giants blocked the kick, then had the ball with 3:54 left on their own 36. Kerry Collins hit Amani Toomer for the big, 19-yard gain, and then threw to Tiki Barber for 12 more. Soon enough, Conway got his second chance, from 29 yards.

“Right down the middle,” Conway said. “Would have been good from 60.”

The Giants escaped. Fassel escaped. That’s what they seem to do for a living. “You don’t get style points,” Fassel said.

He’s right.