Here are a few quick points to ponder as we start winding down on the ever-too-short spring sports season.* Lay off the Celtics. They went 66-16 in the regular season and won home-court advantage in the playoffs. That’s important, because the home advantage is more important in the NBA than it is in any other sport. The crowd alone is worth 10 points to the home team.You’d like them to win on the road before the playoffs are over, but don’t kick them too much if they haven’t yet. As a unit, they’re finding out what most of the remaining teams in the playoffs already know: Home cookin’ in May and June is mighty tasty indeed.* A major-league pitcher isn’t a true major-league pitcher until he learns that giving up a few runs early doesn’t mean you just surrender.Clay Buchholz isn’t a major-league pitcher yet and won’t be until he learns this.* There are a few nice stories germinating in Lynn this spring. One involves the Lynn Tech baseball team, which is 10-3 (after a win over North Shore yesterday) and could still win the Commonwealth Conference/Small title outright. The Tigers have had some tough times in this decade, but coach Yuri Sanchez – who remembers when Tech was a team to reckon with – has brought them back in his two years with the Tigers.* Then there’s the Classical softball team, which is 11-3 with a new pitcher (Jenny Garrity) and seven new starters. The Rams are two games ahead of Peabody (the teams still have to play one more time), and a Northeastern Conference/North title would be an enormous accomplishment.Much of that, of course, has to do with the leadership of Afton Dean. “Goose,” as she is called, is third in the state in hitting ? and is playing a nearly flawless shortstop.* Finally, last spring the St. Mary’s softball team lost a heartbreaker to North Reading in the Division 3 North final. This year, the Spartans stand poised to win their first Catholic Central League title since 1985, and will do so with a win today (3:30) over Arlington Catholic at Breed.And pitcher Katelynn Fanning seems to be one of the few hurlers in the area who has figured out how to be dominating at 43 feet instead of 40.* The pairings are out for the John Holland Memorial Softball Tournament, with St. Mary’s drawing English in the opener while Classical takes on Swampscott. That should be a good take. The Big Blue are 8-5 (8-4) and trail only Danvers – the perennial power – in the NEC/South.* Can we just end this endless prattle about “Spygate” now? It’s over. Done. Finished. Matt Walsh is now officially the Y2K of sports.Look. The story dogged the Patriots all season. And just when they figured it was out of their lives, along came a story – one day before the Super Bowl – claiming they’d cheated egregiously (filmed the Rams’ walkthrough) before the 2002 Super Bowl.Yesterday, we found out officially that story was wrong. So let’s give it up and move on, please? And this includes Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who must have other things to worry about.* Former Classical and English basketball player Lou Tsioropoulos (still the only Lynner ever to have won an NCAA national championship) on the late Rams basketball coach Jim Twohig, who died in March:”I called him at the beginning of the holiday season of 2007,” says Tsioropoulos. “I related to him how much he helped me and told him he was one of the strongest and (most) helpful individuals to help basketball in Lynn.”He was the first coach who took me under his wing,” he said.Steve Krause is sports editor of The Item