Cleveland Cavaliers guard Sam Merrill also believes he deserves more minutes

The Cleveland Cavaliers once again needed someone who could make the defense shift on the perimeter against the New York Knicks on Sunday. Unlike last spring, they got that in Sam Merrill as he poured in a team-high 21 points on 7-13 shooting from three.

Merrill provided a pulse to a team that otherwise had none. They had a 119.6 offensive rating with him on the floor. This fell to 81.6 in the 19 minutes he sat.

It’s easy to see how Merrill helps the offense. His movement shooting causes the defense to overreact. Any bit of daylight means the three is going up. When he has it going as he did against New York, he can truly break what has been an unbreakable defense for the Cavaliers.

Merrill’s minutes are still somehow an open discussion even after a strong performance on the heels of a good one against the Detroit Pistons. He was only in the rotation for the last two games due to Caris LeVert and Donovan Mitchell being out of the lineup. When both have been healthy recently, he’s been seeing his minutes drastically trimmed if not cut entirely out of the rotation.

“We gotta keep working at it,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said after Sunday’s loss. “He’s proven that when his minutes come, he can help us win basketball games. We know we can count on him. We just gotta keep trying to work in minutes.”

This is the typical response whenever a question about Merrill’s minutes comes up. Frankly, it doesn’t make sense given how this team continually struggles with off-ball movement and desperately needs what Merrill provides.

Rotations are the easiest thing to second-guess from the couch. That said, there are 240 available minutes in a basketball game. Five guys are allowed on the court at a time. The positions matter, but it isn’t this challenging to carve out 15-20 a night for someone who can change a game this much when he has it going. The Cavaliers' guard rotation outside of Donovan Mitchell isn’t good enough to warrant anyone being exempt from taking a trim if necessary.

On top of that, the Cavs should be embracing smaller lineups featuring Max Strus and Isaac Okoro sharing responsibilities at the four given how dreadful Georges Niang’s minutes have been. There’s certainly minutes to be had on a team that’s lost five of their last nine while registering a -2.1 net rating and the 18th-ranked offense (113.5 offensive rating).

This has been a mediocre basketball team over the better part of the last month in need of a shakeup.

You can tell some version of these thoughts have crossed Merrill’s mind on more than a few occasions. When asked whether he feels he deserves more minutes, Merrill paused, searched for the exact words, but still had to admit that he does believe he deserves more consistent run.

“Yeah,” Merrill said, “But we got a lot of guys and there’s only so many minutes that can go around. So I just try and control what I can. We understand that with all the guys that we have and the way we’ve been playing, there’s gonna be nights for some guys where you don’t play as much as you want. My mindset is to control what I can.”

Merrill came into training camp without a guaranteed contract. He wasn’t a lock to make the team outright and has fought for every minute he’s received. It’s a path he’s familiar with as a professional. This season he’s proven he’s worthy of a solidified spot in the rotation.

Elite movement shooting is one of the most difficult skills to find. Guys who knock down 44.1% of their threes on 5.4 attempts per game and 12.3 per 36 minutes don’t grow on trees. On top of that, it’s a skillset a team with two high-usage isolation scorers that is also hellbent on playing two bigs together needs most.

They have that skillset waiting on the bench. The question is whether or not Bickerstaff will actually turn to it when the games matter most.

If he does, Merrill will be ready.

“I try and prepare myself every day and get my work in regardless of whether or not I’m playing or not,” Merrill said. “So that when the opportunities comes, I feel confident to go out there and be successful.”