Rockets guard Sterling Brown picked up his dribble and looked to launch an 18-footer but could not get a clean look with Timberwolves’ 7-footer Karl Anthony-Towns closing fast.
Kelly Olynyk, in his first game with the Rockets, rushed out toward the free throw line, giving Brown a place to go with the ball, taking Brown’s pass and immediately reading Brown’s give-and-go cut toward the rim. Olynyk delivered a sharp bounce pass to set up a layup, just as they would have perfected through dozens, maybe 100s of repetitions in practice had they ever had a practice together.
They never have. Olynyk started on Saturday before he had time, he admitted, to learn all of his new teammates’ names.
That might say something about the state of the team he joined when the Rockets on Thursday traded Victor Oladipo to the Miami Heat in exchange for Olynyk and Avery Bradley along with a potentially improved draft position in 2022. It seems unlikely that Oladipo needed to learn the names of the players he joined a season after the Heat were in the NBA Finals.
Yet, as with his ad-libbed chemistry with Brown, Olynyk made his adjustment appear easy.
“It’s a different feeling, obviously, getting traded,” said Olynyk, who started because Christian Wood was out. “But when Houston called me, they were excited about me coming here and the opportunity to play with these guys. Whatever happens, happens the rest of this year.
“It’s just about coming here, creating that culture, just take one step forward every single day.”
A win in the only game he has played with the Rockets would qualify as a step forward for a team that comes home for Monday’s game against the Grizzlies, a team that topped the Rockets by 49 in the previous meeting, with a 13-32 record.
For Olynyk, going from the Heat to the Rockets this season represents a considerable fall down the standings, though the Heat have not reached last season’s bubble heights. He was playing regularly in Miami, starting 38 games and playing an average of 26.9 minutes, more than he ever played in his eight-year career. With the Rockets, he will be Wood’s backup (though Wood is questionable to play on Monday with an illness.)
There immediately seemed to be a good fit.
“I think that’s who he is,” Rockets coach Stephen Silas said. “At halftime, I went in the locker room and I told the coaches, “He is a connector.’ He is someone who plays in a way that makes everybody else play well. He’s not just a shooter. He can handle the ball. He can make plays for others. He has a knack for the game you don’t find very much and we haven’t seen since I’ve been here.”
Olynyk also joins a team that has long valued range-shooting from their frontcourt players. A career 65 percent 3-point shooter at 6-11, 240, Olynyk can bring that without forcing the Rockets to go small.
“That was good,” Olynyk said of the match of his skills and the Rockets’ style. “They play right into my skillset. They want what I bring. I’ll try to do to the best of my abilities to do what they need. It’s not only shooting the ball, it’s moving the ball, getting everybody involved. Just going out there, for me, it’s about helping the team any way you can. It doesn’t have to be scoring or shooting, although those are things I can definitely bring to help get some space.”
Acquired by the Celtics in a draft night deal with the Mavericks, who had made Olynyk, the 13th pick of the 2013 draft out of Gonzaga, Olynyk had signed a four-year, $50 million contract with the Heat in 2017 and exercised his player option for this season.
Olynyk, who turns 30 next month on the day the Rockets play in Miami (though in the second half of a back-to-back there won’t be much time for a homecoming), had never been traded before Thursday and has played for just two head coaches. But he showed himself to be a quick learner just by watching the first of the Rockets’ games in Minneapolis from the bench.
“Honestly, just coming in (Friday) night basically, just watching that game, trying to pick up on offensive plays, defensive schemes, all that, I caught up on the fly,” Olynyk said. “I don’t really know what the terminology is sometimes. Right before the tip, I was like, “This is what we’re doing, this is what we’re doing?’
“It’s always good to put that thought in everybody’s mind, to make sure they know what you think they’re doing, as well.”
It seemed to work, though having shots go in fits with every scheme and style.
Late in his 25-minute debut, however, Olynyk again looked like anything but a newcomer, showing a veteran’s feel for the game the Rockets had so desperately lacked when Wood was out.
Taking a pass from Brown at the elbow, he turned to face Towns before finding Jae’Sean Tate cutting along the baseline. A no-look bounce pass found Tate for a layup. A minute later, his night was done with a 25-point lead seeming safe.
jonathan.feigen@chron.com
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