The Biggest Challenge Facing Cavaliers Head Coach J.B. Bickerstaff Before Playoffs
There's a case to be made the 2023-24 Cavaliers are deeper than the 2016 squad that won an NBA Championship.
Cleveland has the ability to run 10 players deep on any given night if head coach J.B. Bickerstaff so chooses. The problem is, with the playoffs a little over a month away and only 22 games to go, there are some notable inconsistencies with how he utilizes certain players in his rotation. Sam Merrill being chief among them.
Look no further than Sunday's 107-98 loss to the Knicks. It was hardly the heavy weight showdown fans were hoping for. Donovan Mitchell was ruled out pregame dealing with knee soreness, while Caris LeVert continues dealing with an elbow sprain that left him sidelined as well. Knicks star point guard Jalen Brunson also left the game less than a minute with a knee injury after landing awkwardly and never returned. That's on top of Julus Randle and O.G. Anunoby sitting this one out with injuries of their own.
Without Mitchell and LeVet there were more minutes to go around for Merrill, as the Cavs were desperate for a spark beyond the arc and as he's done all season, Merrill delivered. He fired a whopping 13 threes on the night, knocking down seven of them, just ahy of 53-percent. At one point in the second quarter he hit on three straight three point attempts to help the Wine and Gold battle back to take a lead into the break.
Merrill played a grand total of 29 minutes on the night. An uptick from the 15 minutes he's averaged for the season, and the 14 minutes he's averaged since the All-Star Break. It's not that the 27-year-old wasn't going to see his minutes dip once Darius Gardland and Evan Mobley returned from injury earlier in the year. But finding the right balance of minutes for him now that those guys are back is a delicate challenge Bickerstaff has to figure out.
Merrill is a weapon. One that the Cavs have lacked in recent years as fans clamored for "more shooting." His mere presence on the floor draws attention along the perimeter. Even if the argument against him playing more is that he doesn't have a lot of playoff experience, simply having players that demand respect outside can go a long way in the playoffs, whether he's knocking down shots or not.
Even in what was a brutal loss that left Cleveland looking feeble, yet again, against the team that put the boots to them in the playoffs almost a year ago, it was abundantly clear that Merrill is an asset to this Cavs team.
There should almost never be a reason Merrill ends up as a DNP, like he was for both nights of a back-to-back just last week against the Mavericks and the Bulls.
Time is of the essence. Bickerstaff will be judged based on how this team fares in the playoffs. If he goes down without deploying one of the biggest weapons in his arsenal, he'll likely be coaching elsewhere next season.
