CATCHING ON

Steve Smith showered, dressed neatly in a suit and found his way out of the visitors’ locker room at Lambeau Field, down the hall to where postgame highlights flickered across a television screen.

The New York Giants rookie had every reason to be happy. His team had just defeated Green Bay in overtime, winning the NFC title, and he had contributed a couple of fourth-quarter catches.

But contentment isn’t his style.

His reserved manner -- you have to lean closer to hear him speak -- veils intensity. After a season of injuries and impatience, Smith has grown eager to show the NFL what made him a go-to guy at USC.

“That last pass,” he said, keeping an eye on the television. “I thought I had it.”

A third-down pass that glanced off his fingertips. It did not matter because, on the next snap, the Giants kicked the winning field goal. Still, Smith wanted to see exactly what happened on the play.

“I think I broke the route off on a wrong angle . . . messes up the timing,” he said. And then: “Rookie mistake.”

The Giants team that faces the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII on Sunday will feature several rookies in key roles. Kevin Boss has filled in for the injured Jeremy Shockey at tight end, Ahmad Bradshaw is making plays at running back and, depending on his health, Aaron Ross could be a factor in the secondary.

Smith will line up as the third receiver after being sidelined most of the regular season.

Patriots Coach Bill Belichick and Giants teammate Plaxico Burress have been two of the people noticing Smith’s contributions in the playoffs.

“It’s great to have a guy like Steve Smith back and getting healthy at this time in the season,” Burress said. “He has been a guy that has been making big plays for us when we need him to.”

Said Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride: “We’re not surprised that he would be successful. We just didn’t know how fast he would get caught up to speed.”

At USC, Smith spent four years as the “other” guy playing opposite marquee names, first Mike Williams and Keary Colbert, then Dwayne Jarrett. He never got as much attention but quietly became the fifth-leading receiver in school history, accounting for 3,019 yards and 22 touchdowns.

The scouting reports tagged him as quick off the line and balanced, with the body control to adjust to passes and the focus to make catches in a crowd, all of which prompted the Giants to draft him in the second round last spring.

The Giants already had veterans Burress and Amani Toomer on the outside but needed a third man because a draft pick from the previous season, Sinorice Moss, wasn’t panning out.

“Quarterbacks like these kind of guys because they can depend on him,” General Manager Jerry Reese said at the time. “He can go in traffic and make plays.”

Physical talent accounts for only part of this skill. Smith might seem calm, even laid-back, but people who have played beside him know better.

At USC, he got into a fight with a considerably larger teammate, Dominique Byrd, and broke Byrd’s jaw. On the field, he played through injury.

“Steve works hard,” said Colbert, the Carolina Panthers receiver who was Smith’s mentor at USC. “He’s very intense.”

Smith describes himself this way: “I really am a reserved guy. But in the heat of the moment, if you want the ball, you’ve got to be the aggressor. Maybe that’s what people see in me.”

Through the NFL preseason, he caught eight passes for 78 yards and a touchdown, quickly earning a spot in the rotation. But that lasted only a few weeks.

In the second game of the season, against Green Bay, Smith was tackled from behind.

“It wasn’t even a big hit,” he recalled. “But then it hurt, so I went to the sideline, and I couldn’t lift my arm.”

His shoulder blade was broken, requiring six weeks of recovery. Then, just before he could return to the lineup, a pulled hamstring sidelined him five more weeks.

There were rumblings that Coach Tom Coughlin might put Smith on the injured reserve list. Instead, Coughlin gave him a stern talk.

“I really needed that,” Smith said. “When you get injured, you have to get over that mental block -- is it going to be OK to play with pain?”

Not that he didn’t have experience with injury. As a sophomore at USC, Smith broke a leg and sat out five games before returning to catch seven passes for 113 yards and three touchdowns against Oklahoma in the 2005 Bowl Championship Series title game.

At Coughlin’s urging, Smith returned for the last three games of the regular season, slowly finding a rhythm.

In a wild-card playoff game against Tampa Bay, he caught three passes for 29 yards, including a third-down reception that helped set up a touchdown run. The next week, against Dallas, his role expanded.

Late in the first half, Smith caught consecutive passes that set up a touchdown to tie the score.

A third-down reception kept the offense on the field in the fourth quarter, driving for the winning touchdown.

“Steve Smith made a lot of plays in there,” Coughlin said.

Quarterback Eli Manning kept looking his way against Green Bay, even after the first few tries fell incomplete. Smith finally got two receptions in the fourth quarter, and Manning counts him among the reasons for New York’s unexpected Super Bowl run.

“We have Steve back in the offense,” Manning said. “He has been doing some good things.”

If nothing else, Smith hopes his time at USC, playing for national titles, will ease the pressure of Super Bowl week.

He will draw upon memories of the Oklahoma game, figuring “If I do anything like that in the Super Bowl, that’d be great.”

After a season of false starts and frustrations, the rookie sounds as if he is finally enjoying himself.

“So much fun,” he said. “Some of the most fun I’ve ever had.”

But a few days after the Green Bay game, he still wanted to look at videotape of the game. He wanted to see that last pass again, figure out what he did wrong.

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SUPER BOWL XLII

New England Patriots (18-0) vs. N.Y. Giants (13-6)

Sunday, at Glendale, Ariz., 3:15 p.m. PST, Ch. 11

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)Bouncing back

New York Giants wide receiver Steve Smith sat out 11 games in the regular season but has been one of Eli Manning’s most reliable targets in the playoffs. The rookie from USC had three catches for 29 yards in the Giants’ 38-35 loss to New England in Week 17:

REGULAR SEASON

*--* Games Rec Yds Avg TD 5 8 63 7.9 0 *--*

PLAYOFFS

*--* Games Rec Yds Avg TD 3 9 102 11.3 0 *--*