HOUSTON — It’s the NBA playoffs, and that can only mean one thing: It’s time to break out the F-word.

No, not that F-word. In pro basketball, there’s a far worse name you can call somebody: “Flopper.”

And it took just three days of playoff action for the dreaded label to be spread far and wide.

Here in Houston, for instance, the Rockets were livid over a call at the end of game 2 that resulted in an offensive foul against Luis Scola, wiping away a game-tying 3-pointer by Bobby Jackson in the final minute. Utah went on to win 90-84, while the Rockets went to the F-word.

The key to the play was some creative embellishment by the man Scola fouled, Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko. Kirilenko was racing to the corner to cover Tracy McGrady. Scola was in the way. Kirilenko hit Scola’s arm and then flew into the crowd with arms flailing; his dive drew the attention of official Tony Brothers and a whistle against the Rockets. With the play helping put Houston down 2-0 in the series with the next two games in Utah, one can say the call all but ended the Rockets’ season.

“He put his hand on Kirilenko’s shoulder, and Kirilenko fell back like a truck just hit him,” said Rockets coach Rick Adelman. “I have a really hard time with that. He literally flopped. If Luis was that strong, we’d be holding these guys off the boards a whole lot better than we’re doing.”

“Kirilenko flopped, and you call a foul on that? It was a bad call,” emphasized an aggrieved McGrady.

But the Rockets aren’t the only ones crying flop. Phoenix’s Shaquille O’Neal had similar sentiments after a foul-plagued game 1 in the Suns’ loss to San Antonio. He played only 30 minutes, even though the game went into two overtimes, and finished with five fouls.

“They weren’t defending me,” O’Neal said. “All they got to do is flop. It’s frustrating that the referees don’t allow two guys to fight. It’s supposed to be two guys fighting, and one guy is out there flopping. A lot of times, I don’t do anything. But I guess all you got to do is walk next to me and fall.”

Nets fans, of course, may be familiar with this line of commentary. O’Neal for years has complained about the antics of Jason Collins, who drew numerous offensive fouls against him when Shaq had the temerity to lead with his forearms and elbows while turning in the post.

Miami fans are probably even more familiar. As much of a teddy bear as O’Neal is when things are good, nearly every defeat finds him complaining about the opponent flopping or about his teammates not getting him the ball — if he talks to the media at all.

Of course, flopping is in the eye of the beholder. We never heard O’Neal complain once about the antics of his former Laker teammate Derek Fisher, who became noted for his ability to drop to the floor at the slightest hint of contact and draw an offensive foul. That skill helped O’Neal win three titles in L.A.

Similarly, we haven’t heard him whine a bit about the antics of his current Phoenix teammate Raja Bell. Bell has become noted for his ability to start pushing fights away from the ball and then drawing a foul by snapping his head back when the opponent responds.

Sometimes it’s the flopping itself that causes problems. The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant likes to embellish contact by flailing his arms wildly after he thinks he’s been fouled, but too often this results in his arms making contact with a defender’s face.

He was suspended twice for that maneuver a year ago after knocking both Marko Jaric and Manu Ginobili sideways, and he drew the ire of Denver’s Anthony Carter in game 1 of Sunday’s Lakers-Nuggets series with a similar post-foul arm swing that landed in Carter’s face.

“I grabbed him, but once he hit me in my face … He’s been known to do stuff like that,” Carter said. “It’s been happening every game we play them. I always get hit in my face with an elbow or something, and nothing has ever been done about it.”

Adding insult to injury, Carter got a technical foul for his efforts after shoving Bryant in response.

Of course, any discussion of flopping can’t be complete without mentioning San Antonio’s Ginobili. His practice of flying down the lane, creating contact, and then launching his body in the opposite direction has drawn the ire of opposing fans for years — and often opposing coaches too.

Nuggets coach George Karl went on a famous postgame rant two years ago when he complained that Ginobili’s then longish hair was used as a prop to augment his flopping and joked that the would tell his own players to grow their hair out to gain an advantage. However, with Manu now neatly shorn and an incipient bald patch getting noticeably larger, those days are apparently behind us.

Then again, Denver isn’t exactly immune from the flopping charge themselves. Watch Allen Iverson off the ball sometime — his primary defensive tactic when chasing an opponent around screens is to run directly into the screener, snap his head back sharply, and hope the official calls an offensive foul. It works with shocking frequency. And that takes us to the truth about flopping — that everyone’s perfectly fine with it as long as the guys on their own team are the ones doing it.

So as the accusations fly back and forth during these playoffs about opponents flopping to bait the refs into calls, one can’t help but wonder if the coaches and players are really having a different thought: Why can’t our guys flop like that?

“Everybody tries to draw a call and make a ref see it,” Ginobili said in the wake of Karl’s comments two years ago. “I can’t even think of one person who doesn’t do that.”

Apparently, some just do it a lot better than others.

jhollinger@nysun.com