"I wasn't born with enough middle fingers!!!"

Sorry to steal the title of this post from Marilyn Manson... but it is necessary because I couldn't say it better myself right now. I may have to write my own Irresponsible Hate Anthem soon. Seriously... the critical uprising against the Rockets is now absolutely absurd.

SI.com's Marty Burns just put the Rockets 13th in his weekly Power Rankings.

13th?!!? Behind Denver, Golden State, Orlando and Philadelphia. F-U, Marty! Those four games we lost since the Streak were to Boston, New Orleans, Phoenix and San Antonio. These are all playoff teams that will probably have home court advantage in April. It's not like we are Utah and losing multiple games to teams like Minnesota! But, of course, Utah gets a free pass... sure... why not?

At least ESPN "only" bumped us to 7th. Which I can live with right now. Of course, if Simmons did the rankings, we'd be 20th.

I can't wait for us to beat up on Sacramento on Wednesday.

To hell with it - everyone is On Notice!

It wasn't enough that Ian Thomsen and SI.com started bashing the Rockets.

No, the Sports Guy had to pile on, too (though, with flawed analysis).

Even ESPN has their backhanded compliment of the week for the Rockets. Almost expecting T-Mac and Adelman to fail in the playoffs.

Now bloggers and commenters everywhere are starting to call the Houston Rockets "frauds" and similarly unkind words.

And, insult of all insults, even our buddies over at Hardwood Paroxysm are now suggesting that other teams in the Western Conference might resort to tanking just to position themselves to play the Houston Rockets in Round 1 of the playoffs.

Hey, Corn, right here buddy!

Yes, I know yesterday's game against the Spurs gives a LOT of fuel to the fire of any critic of the Houston Rockets. I'm quite sure that sometime yesterday afternoon, Stephen A. Smith was dancing around frenetically all giddy that one of his random statements might possibly, possibly be accurate. (It was not, but that's a discussion for another day.)

Let's backtrack for a second.

mid-January... Rockets languishing in 10th place. No hope of playoffs or anything. I say not to worry, we're making the playoffs. We'll be fine.

early-February... Rockets begin the Streak. Everyone dismisses it as an easy schedule. But I don't recall anyone else in the NBA winning 22 in a row.

mid-February... Yao is hurt. Out for Season. Every single NBA analyst that I can recall declared the Rockets' playoff chances dead. T-Mac and the gang ignored them and won another ten in a row.

March 18th... Rockets lose to Boston. Streak ends. Critics sharpen their pencils.

March 30th... Rockets lose to Spurs. Badly. Rockets now "frauds"... even though we've beaten New Orleans, Los Angeles (Lakers), Golden State, Dallas AND Denver -- all without the services of Yao. And in some instances without Carl Landry, too.

Rockets still are 49-24. Pretty freakin' good. And we should at least win seven out of our last nine games to finish at 56-26. Which is also pretty freakin' good.

San Antonio scares me in the playoffs. But they scare everyone.
Phoenix scares me because Rafer can't stay in front of Nash. And Shaq might confuse Landry and Scola with a hamburger and fries. Dangerous.

Beyond those two teams, I truly believe the Rockets have a good chance of seeing some playoff success. Bonus points if we get to beat up on Utah at home. Really.