By TOM KNOTT

WASHINGTON, D.C, May 21 — Applause goes to the Zen master this time around, however reluctantly.

He already knows he is good. The risk is in adding to his smug manner.

The Zen master is eight postseason victories away from his 10th NBA championship as a coach, and really just down to one last serious playoff test, given the modest basketball affairs in Indianapolis and Detroit.

His next championship is the one that drops Red Auerbach to second.

Auerbach is not accustomed to being second to anyone, and certainly not warm to the Zen master’s history-making march.

Auerbach has observed the same as everyone else: The Zen master has flourished in the vicinity of the best there ever was in basketball and the immovable object who has skill and grace.

Those are two of the Zen master’s qualifiers, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal, neither of whom, it must be pointed out, won a championship before the pet rock and the spirit of Geronimo were incorporated into the game plan.

This season has been anything but blissful for the Zen master, despite the four future members of the Hall of Fame in his midst.

The Zen master has labored in the delicate work environment of fragile egos and Kobe Bryant’s legal mess in Colorado.

Gary Payton has been cold to the triangle offense, reduced minutes and the suggestion that he is showing his 35 years on defense. He wants to hit the road as soon as the last bottle of champagne is uncorked.

Karl Malone, who suffered the first significant injury of his iron man career during the regular season, has waffled between steady assurances and hints that his zest for the game is no longer what it once was.

Until the Lakers won four games in a row against the Spurs after dropping the first two games of the series, Malone seemed as befuddled as everyone else with the one-year experiment.

Nearly everyone handed the championship to the Lakers last October. Then the 82-game season happened, peppered with the customary sniping and uneasiness between O’Neal and Bryant.

The Zen master played his usual psychological cards, although he could not be sure of their effect with this bunch.

This was the accidental team after Malone and Payton agreed to massive paycuts to join the Lakers and make a run at a championship. The parts have never quite fit, even with Malone subjugating his role in the offense.

It is a team that could use another season together, if it really wanted to be a team in the traditional season. That is not likely to happen.

Uncertainty is just another element that has trailed the Zen master this season. Even his contract status remains unresolved.

Yet the Zen master is on the verge of eclipsing Auerbach and moving to the front of the coaching class.

It is a prospect that forces a look.

Is the Zen master that good? Is he that smart?

He is that good, and he is that smart.

He also is a product of his personnel, as any coach is.

The Zen master/Auerbach contention is impossible to settle, given all the game’s changes in the last 40 years.

You can say this: The Zen master, insufferable as he is at times, is the best of his coaching generation.