IN THE LANE
CANDOR OFFERED: The most stunning moment of Game 1 of the NBA Finals was not all that stunning to Heat big man Kelly Olynyk, who said, yes, there have been times when he, like J.R. Smith, had lost track of scores at the ends of close games. “All the time,” Olynyk said from India amid his work with the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program. “I feel like I’ve forgotten the score before. You’re down one and you think you’re up one. Then you realize it and it’s too late. That happens all the time. It’s human. Everybody is a human.”
CANDOR OFFERED, TOO: That live-and-let-live approach also had Olynyk without qualm when it came to Warriors guard Shaun Livingston electing to shoot rather than take a 24-second violation at the end of an already decided Game 1 against the Cavaliers. “I don’t really think it makes a difference, personally,” Olynyk said. “Whether you lose by 17 or 19 or 17 or 20 or whether you win by eight or win by nine or whether you have 12 turnovers or 13 turnovers, it’s not affecting the outcome of the game. It doesn’t really matter to me. It doesn’t really make a difference to me. It doesn’t make a difference in the outcome of the game, win-and-loss record. If a guy wants two more points, we’ll give it to him and move on.”
BACK IN BOSTON: Before leaving for his week in India, Olynyk took in the Boston Celtics’ Game 5 victory over the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals. Celtics coach Brad Stevens said he hardly was surprised to see his former big man. “Well, I think first of all, Kelly loves basketball,” Stevens said. “He’s in the gym all the time. He had a tremendous year in Miami, and I thought the way he was playing late in the season — I watched obviously all the Philadelphia games — Coach Spo [Erik Spoelstra] and their system and Kelly are a perfect fit. They’re really, really doing a lot of good things.” Except defeating the 76ers, who eliminated the Heat in five games before being eliminated by the Celtics in five.
BEEN THERE: Celtics center Aron Baynes exited the series loss to the Cavaliers with a sense of better days ahead, having lost to the Heat with the Spurs in the 2013 NBA Finals and then bounced back against the Heat in the 2014 Finals. “I told the team the 2013 Spurs lost a game seven and it galvanized the group,” Baynes said the day after being eliminated by Cleveland.
WAITING GAME: With the next month setting up a potentially transformative offseason for the Heat, swingman Rodney McGruder hopes management keeps the team together so he can resume the work he started before this past injury-limited season. “I hope and pray that there’s a way that all of us can stay together and there’s a way we can keep fighting with the progress and the strides we made from last season to this season,” he said after participating in last week’s Good Grief Camp in Washington for those who lost loved ones in the military. “So I feel like it’s only up from here, getting to grow and just competing. I look forward to everyone having even a better year next year.”