Chris Gatling celebrates the Mavericks winning the 1996 Mexico City Challenge. (Barry Gossage/NBA/Getty Images)One-time NBA All-Star Chris Gatling faces criminal charges after Arizona police say he illegally occupied a Paradise Valley, Ariz., home for more than a year, and then tried to rent the place on Craigslist, according to the Arizona Republic:

Chris Gatling is accused of breaking into a key box and living in the home from July 2010 to August 2011. A police report says the homeowners lived in California but had left the power on.

The TV station reports that he later listed the four-bedroom house for rent for $800 and called it an “Ex-NBA” home online.

Court records say that Gatling got a down payment from one potential renter but that another got suspicious and contacted police.

Gatling’s attorney, Michael Alarid, said the case is a “misunderstanding.”

It very well could be. Everyone's innocent until proven guilty in this country, and besides, misunderstood stuff goes up on Craigslist all the time.

Gatling has also been accused of forging personal checks from his ex-girlfriend and "funneling the money through College Bound All-Stars, a traveling youth basketball league that Gatling managed and operated," according to Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO-TV.

How can you call this wonderful man "heartless?" (Getty Images)

Heading into Game 5 of their series with the Chicago Bulls, the Brooklyn Nets were coming off what could have been a dispiriting (and stamina-killing) triple-overtime loss in Game 4. The team had plenty of chances to turn the tide and take back home-court advantage while in Chicago, but because the 63-minute marathon that didn’t go in their favor, the Nets were facing an often insurmountable 3-1 deficit in their first-round pairing as Monday evening set in.

Instead of boring his team with 63 minutes of game tape and adjustments, Nets interim head coach P.J. Carlesimo dialed up this YouTube clip of Chicago Sun-Times columnist (and noted not all that swell of a guy) Joe Cowley, talking up some internal Chicago Bulls monologue that he is apparently privy to. Watch Cowley here:

Jason Collins' Monday announcement that he is gay sparked responses throughout the NBA world and beyond, and while we covered some of the immediate reactions on Monday, discussion has continued to stir and spread. Here's some things that have been said and written that might be worth your time.

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Collins reiterated that he "never set out to be the first" in a Monday interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that aired during Tuesday's broadcast of "Good Morning America."

"You're sort of waiting around for somebody else to … raise their hand," he said. "I'm ready to raise my hand but, you know, you still look around like, 'OK, come on, guys.' It's time for someone else in the room to raise their hand and say, 'You know what? Yeah, so big deal. I can still play basketball. I can still help the team win, and that's what's most important.'"

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TNT commentators Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal discussed Collins' announcement prior to the network's broadcast of the Eastern Conference playoff matchup between the Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls, with Barkley saying "we've all played with gay players," Smith emphasizing the role his race plays in his support for inclusion because "as an African American [...] that's the one thing that we always wanted," and O'Neal commending Collins for "his character" and for "showing us what leadership looks like."

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Jason Collins and former fiancee Carolyn Moos. (MCT/Getty Images)

Carolyn Moos says she had no idea that Jason Collins, her longtime boyfriend and fiancé, was actually gay.

In the Sports Illustrated piece featuring his groundbreaking revelation, the 12-year NBA veteran wrote, "When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue."

Moos, however, didn't know. The former WNBA player told TMZ that she only found out about Collins' orientation a couple of days before the world did:

Carolyn tells TMZ, she never once suspected he was gay, so the news is shocking. She says Collins eventually revealed everything last weekend — just days before his big announcement — and said that his homosexuality was the real reason he ended things with her.

At the time of their breakup, Carolyn says Jason gave a bunch of BS reasons for calling it quits ... and she could never understand what went wrong, until now. [...]

"It's very emotional for me as a woman to have invested [eight] years in my dream to have a husband, soul mate, and best friend in him. So this is all hard to understand."

The Mamba waits to pounce (Getty Images)

With every season that ends, for the playoff teams at least, we felt it right to take a look ahead. TNT already has the rights to "Gone Fishin'," and because we're sure that someone, somewhere, still likes that Wyclef song, we're going with "Gone Till November." And, yes, we know the season starts in October. Today? The Los Angeles Lakers.

In terms of overall word count, the NBA blogosphere probably broke the all-time record this season when it came to the 2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers. It’s true that the 2010-11 Miami Heat, fresh off of LeBron James’ annoying "Decision," really turned on the content providers, but something about this collection of stars hit home with both writers and readers.

It certainly hit home with me. The chance for the two greatest guards of their respective generation to mix with the NBA’s best center and most versatile big man had me salivating last summer. I didn’t appreciate Los Angeles’ borderline-cruel great timing as they seemingly fleeced both Orlando and Phoenix into acquiring the services of Steve Nash and Dwight Howard. Even with the caveats — age, health, the presence of Mike Brown on Los Angeles' sideline — I assumed that an 82-game season would last long enough for the Lakers to figure it all out and start to find their groove just as they hit the postseason.

And I, like many others, was way wrong. To a degree nobody could anticipate, with Pau Gasol acting as the only active member of the Lakers in the second half of their final game of the season — one that was played in April, no less, and not mid-June. Metta World Peace's, Nash's and Kobe Bryant’s injuries paired with Howard’s Game 4 petulance to create a disastrous and fitting end to a terrible season. A sad season, really, for those of us who love to watch great basketball at its peak.

Ah, youth. (Image via Harvard-Westlake School)

When Jason Collins announced Monday that he is gay, he became the first openly gay active male athlete in any of the four major American professional sports. And yet he still might not be the most famous member of his high school basketball team.

[Also: ThePostGame: The road to Jason Collins' revelation]

Back in the mid-1990s, Collins and his brother Jarron starred for Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, Calif., dominating the interior and leading the Wolverines to two state Division III-A championships. But while the Stanford-bound twin towers garnered most of the attention and headlines, a 6-foot-4 backup big man (hey, remember, it's high school) with some ups was getting his fair share of recognition, too. From a March 1996 feature on the team by Vince Kowalick of the Los Angeles Times (emphasis mine):

They call Alex Gelbard "Gelbows," a nickname born of his propensity to protrude a pointy joint whenever an opponent drives the lane.

Jason Segel answers to "Doctor Dunk," although he craves more than the 15 minutes of fame he received during an East Coast slam dunk contest.

And Abed Abusaleh, a.k.a. "Air-Ball Abed," is determined to sink a three-point shot, even if it means hurling enough bricks to build a small fire station.

[Also: Bubba Watson shows support for ESPN analyst that condemned Jason Collins]

Yep — it's that Jason Segel, the one who has starred on the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" for nearly a decade, and who starred in the films "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "I Love You, Man." But before he was a star of the big and small screens, he was "Doctor Dunk" — Jason Collins' backup.

Houston Rockets forward Chandler Parsons had a lot going through his mind just after the buzzer sounded late Monday night — processing that he'd just put up playoff career highs of 27 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists against the No. 1-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, getting past the moment of fear that had to have come while watching Serge Ibaka rise up for an uncontested putback (which somehow didn't go in), feeling a victory-related rush after holding on for a 105-103 win that forced a Game 5 in this best-of-seven first-round series, etc.

Sometimes, when that much is going on, you can lose sight of other stuff — like, for example, a front-row fan who wants nothing more than to celebrate the victory with you. At least, that's got to be what this fan had to be telling himself, because it's way more comforting than thinking about what actually appeared to happen ... namely, that Parsons began the motion of giving him a pound, took a closer look at him, thought better of it and walked away.

Pretty cold, Chandler — and your former Rockets teammate, Sacramento Kings forward Patrick Patterson, definitely noticed:

After leading by as many as 13 points late in the second quarter only to once again cough up an early advantage in this series and trail by as many as 13 late in the third quarter, the Oklahoma City Thunder had a chance to force overtime against the fighting-for-their-playoff-lives Houston Rockets ... only to see forward Serge Ibaka's last-chance bid come up juuuust a little short.

The Thunder trailed 105-103 with 12 seconds left, possession of the ball and an opportunity to either tie the game or go for the win and finish off a 4-0 sweep of the young eighth-seeded Rockets. Oklahoma City superstar Kevin Durant dribbled from the left wing past the top of the key and over to the right side, where he pulled up in hopes of attempting yet another huge late-game 3-pointer, but Rockets defender Francisco Garcia tightly contested the move, forcing KD to turn away from the basket and, since he'd given up his dribble, pass to teammate Reggie Jackson.

The ball went off the sophomore point guard's hand, though, draining precious seconds off the clock and forcing Oklahoma City into a mad-dash scramble. Jackson beat defender Chandler Parsons into the paint (thanks, in part, to flimsy help defense from Houston star James Harden) but as he elevated to either attempt a game-tying layup or look for a passing lane, Jackson was met just outside the restricted area by Rockets center Omer Asik, who walled off Reggie's drive and forced an on-the-way-down flip toward the basket. Jackson's desperation try barely caught rim ... but it landed right in the hands of Ibaka, who had an opportunity to play the hero after being left alone by Asik's rotation (and by Harden failing to help the helper by crashing down into the paint to get a body on Ibaka).

Instead, Ibaka short-armed his point-blank attempted putback, the ball dying on the foot of the rim and descending as the buzzer sounded to signal a 105-103 Rockets win that staved off a sweep and extended the best-of-seven first-round series to a fifth game.