Coaches and managers, like quarterbacks and presidents, receive too much credit when all goes well and too much blame when the results turn south.

Or at least that’s how the cliche goes. Occasionally, we can’t even leave success alone.

Take Phil Jackson. Critics will tell you that any knucklehead could have won NBA titles with Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal or Kobe Bryant. Particularly Shaq and Kobe. How hard could it be? Check the air pressure in the balls, tell Derek Fisher to give it to Kobe and insist on bubble wrap when they mail the coach of the year plaque.

Jackson doesn’t fight the image much, especially in timeouts, when Kobe does all the talking. And it doesn’t help when Kobe talks after playoff victories about what he intended to do in the game plan, not what Jackson might have instructed.

Once upon a time, when he was keeping Dennis Rodman out of dresses, Jackson got his due without much resistance. But as soon as Jackson stood on the brink of surpassing Red Auerbach’s nine titles in Boston, the keepers of the flame took up their torches.

Never mind that, before stealing Bill Russell’s draft rights from the St. Louis Hawks in 1956, Auerbach had accumulated a postseason record of 10-17.

Moral: A demanding approach and attention to detail is good, but a shot-blocker is better.

Now don’t misunderstand. Auerbach probably was the best NBA coach ever. He was a master at building an organization, even if he passed on drafting Bob Cousy, ultimately retaining the point guard’s services by default.

Never discount the advantage of timing or luck, as well as the disadvantage of an impetuous owner.

For instance: A fellow named Bob Short once said he would have fired his mother to hire Billy Martin. Unfortunately, he fired Whitey Herzog instead, to the everlasting sorrow of Rangers fans.

Herzog had helped develop the Mets’ famed farm system in the ’60s when Short hired him as manager at the behest of his GM, Joe Burke. The White Rat thought he had time to build. But Short was losing money and fans, and soon ran out of patience, too, opting for Martin before the year was out.

Based on first-year results, it seemed like genius. In his first full season, 1974, Martin led the Rangers to 84 wins, an astounding 27-win improvement over the year before.

But, as would prove the case throughout his volatile history, Martin didn’t make it through a second season. He left Arlington for the first of several tours with his first love, the Yankees, and won two World Series titles within four years.

Meanwhile, Herzog, after a season with the Angels, moved to Kansas City, where he helped turn that organization around, before moving on to St. Louis, where he led the Cardinals to three pennants and a World Series title.

By my reckoning, there are few coaches and managers who would have won anywhere. All are susceptible to the material they inherit. What they do with it shouldn’t be minimized, because no matter how smart the boss is, a title is a title is a title.

Before he went to work for the Yankees, Joe Torre was 109 games under .500 as a manager. Four World Series titles later, we all saw that coming, right?