Olynyk finds his 3-point whisperer

Ellington pushing 7-foot teammate to keep on shooting from long range

MIAMI — Kelly Olynyk needed a friend, a 3-point friend, someone with, frankly, a bit less shame.

So he turned to Wayne Ellington. “I was asking Wayne the other day, ‘How do you just go out and shoot only threes?’ ” Olynyk said of the conversation between Miami Heat teammates. “It’s not easy to do. He was giving me some advice and some insight.”

As with Ellington,

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra not only has insisted that every open 3-point look from Olynyk is a necessary shot, but one that cannot be bypassed.

“I told him I got used to it,” Ellington said with a smile, with the Heat now turning their attention to Tuesday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks at AmericanAirlines Arena. “Initially, it was one of those things where sometimes you get a little hesitant of if this is a good shot or a bad shot. But at some point you’ve got to look at it as a great thing.”

Ellington now does that, even if none of his attempts come inside the arc, and said Olynyk should accept the green

light with the brightest outlook.

“Your head coach is telling you to let it fly,” Ellington said. “That means not only does he trust your judgment of a good shot and a bad shot, he really has confidence and believes in your ability from out there.”

Olynyk shot 4 of 6 in Sunday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors, his 11 points built on 3 of 4 from beyond the arc, as he helped fuel a second-half rally. The Heat outscored the Raptors by 16 when he was on the court.

“He’s a big-time threat,” Spoelstra said after the loss in Toronto. “He’s every bit of the threat that Wayne is, but at 7 feet. We want him to play like this, and even if he misses his threes.”

The re-wiring of Olynyk began with his arrival as a free agent last season. It remains a work in progress.

“You just got to work at it,” Olynyk said. “It’s obviously tough to do it overnight because you’re ingrained to do something else. But I’ll just keep working at it, keep working at it, and hopefully get it done.

“I mean, you just got to rewire your brain to shoot those shots, I guess.”

There is no guess work here. It is mandate.

“It was a similar process last year when he first joined us,” Spoelstra said. “Now we want him shooting the basketball. He’s one of the best 3-point shooters in the league when he has a clear mind. He has the size to be able to shoot it over most every player that’s going to be guarding him.

“It’s just a matter of getting comfortable, having the confidence to do that and being fearless about it, regardless of the result. I would be perfectly fine if he went 1 for 10, if he shot ‘em all on the catch and with decisiveness.”

The latter factor is the adjustment from so much of what previously came during Olynyk’s basketball career.

But Olynyk said Spoelstra has made the message clear. “Yeah, of course, especially if you get subbed out then you’re like, ‘I should have just taken that shot,’ ” he said. “Obviously, everybody says it’s the dream.”

But so, Olynyk said, is being a complete player. “Obviously, I believe I can do other stuff,” he said. “There’s obviously keeping the defense honest with the threat of the 3-point shot. But if they know you’re only going to shoot threes, it’s a difficult thing to do. You’ve obviously got to grow and learn and go through situations to master that art. I’m obviously trying to get to that point.”

Or, as Ellington told Olynyk, embrace the madness. “You’ve got to look at it as an amazing thing,” Ellington said. “Everybody wants to be able to shoot the three whenever they feel like it’s a good shot. So you’ve got to take advantage of it. That was my thought process, like, ‘What? This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life, is a coach to tell me to let it fly.’ ”