Making it rain: Merrill's stellar work in 2 big areas for Cavaliers, January forecast

No. 1: His flamethrowing

When given his chances out there, Merrill has not been bashful. He has not shown even the slightest bit of hesitation from beyond the arc, and it is paying dividends for the Cavaliers when he has meaningful opportunities, of which there have been plenty.

On the campaign, Merrill has connected on 43.7 percent of his 4.9 three-point shot attempts per game, and in his last 11 appearances, he's shot 45.7 percent from three, on an average of 7.4 attempts per game. In that span, he's had 11.7 points per game, to go with averaging 2.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists.

On the year, Merrill has had a scorching hot effective field goal shooting clip of 71.4 percent on catch-and-shoot attempts, per NBA.com's shot tracking data. On a frequency of 68.9 percent and with all of those being threes, that's been beyond impressive.

Simply put, Merrill has given the Cavaliers quite a jolt of electricity in recent weeks, and with the injuries they've dealt with, especially to Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, it's been big to have players like Merrill, along with Caris LeVert, help give Cleveland a spark.

In Merrill's bench minutes, he's provided the Cavs with a bench shooter that is never going to pass up perimeter shots, and his movement shooting has given the Cavaliers another big-time threat in that aspect to go with Max Strus, which has made Cleveland more dangerous offensively.

Needless to say, Merrill has been nothing short of a flamethrower in his minutes off the bench, and he's only helping his case moving forward.