Cavs guard Sam Merrill is averaging a career-high for 3-point attempts per game this season.
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell caught the basketball in transition as a 5-on-2 advantage developed. Not willing to give Mitchell an easy path to the basket, Atlanta’s two defenders left guard-forward Jaylon Tyson open in the left corner.
Without dribbling, Mitchell delivered a pass to Tyson, who made the corner 3-pointer.
Later in the game, in a halfcourt set, Mitchell drove into the paint, and as the defense collapsed around him, he threw a pass to Tyson on the wing for another catch-and-shoot 3.
Tyson made 5-of-11 3s on his way to 18 points in Cleveland’s 117-109 victory against the Hawks on Nov. 2. While Mitchell’s 37 points may have overshadowed Tyson’s performance, it was an important development for the Cavs and Tyson.
Tyson’s offseason preparation – a determined and calculated effort to become a better 3-point shooter – met the moment.
“How can I add value to the team?” Tyson told NBA.com. “OK, be a spacer, right? So that was one of the big things that I worked on this year is just my catch-and-shoot, playing off-ball, my movement off-ball, cutting, stuff like that. And then conditioning, that was another big thing. So I just tried to find what I could do. That spacing aspect really helped our team dynamics.”
The NBA's third-best three-point shooter! @jaylontyson | #LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/5GKb3qR04S
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) March 20, 2026
It was a scenario that played out repeatedly this season – not only for Tyson but for guard Sam Merrill, too. They are among the NBA’s most efficient 3-point shooters, and the Cavs are among the top 3-point shooting teams. The late-season return of Max Strus from a fracture in his left foot gives the Cavs another 3-point threat.
And it proves true the Mitchell-James Harden Effect. With the defense focused on them, scoring chances, especially 3-point attempts, are available for other players.
Take Cleveland’s 119-117 road victory against the Denver Nuggets on Feb. 9. Harden, the former MVP guard who joined the Cavs days earlier in a trade deadline deal, found Merrill twice for 3s, including one in the fourth quarter that was part of Cleveland’s comeback from an 11-point deficit.
“They’re both great decision-makers,” Merrill said. “Over the past few years, I’ve developed some really good chemistry with Donovan. You start to understand their cadence almost as passers, knowing when the ball’s going to come to you even if they’re not looking at you. They know I’m there, and they’re going to pass to me, so get yourself ready.”
Yes, the Cavs need Mitchell and Harden at their best for the playoffs, but 3-point shooting from others will help determine how deep their run is this spring. Cleveland is 51-29 and in fourth place in the Eastern Conference with a chance to pass the New York Knicks for the No. 3 seed.
Here are the key 3-point stats for the Cavs:
• Tyson is No. 3 in the NBA in 3-point percentage (45.5%), averages a career-best 13.1 points and 5.1 rebounds and is good for two made 3s per game.
• Merrill is 11th in 3-point percentage (42.1%), averages a career-high 12.8 points and connects on three 3s per game.
• The Cavaliers are tied for eighth in 3s made per game (14.4) and rank 12th in 3-point percentage (36%).
• Mitchell and Harden each make at least three 3s per game.
• Since returning from injury, Strus has made 32-of-72 3s in 10 games.
Cavs guard-forward Jaylon Tyson ranks 3rd in the NBA in 3-point percentage.
‘My confidence built from there’
Tyson played for Texas, Texas Tech and California in college and was the 20th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. He had solid moments as a rookie last season and flashed potential as a rotation 3-and-D player. But on a deep roster, he played just 9.6 minutes per game in 47 appearances.
Personnel moves opened up more playing time in 2025-26, and in almost three times more minutes this season, Tyson’s scoring has more than tripled. His efficiency increased, too. Tyson’s field-goal percentage is up nearly 7%, and his 3-point shooting percentage is up 11%. He scored a career-high 39 points against Philadelphia on Jan. 16.
Jaylon Tyson puts up a career-high 39 points in a win over the 76ers.
“I was playing pickup back at home in Dallas in the summer, and a lot of NBA guys were in there,” Tyson said. “We went to training camp and I started shooting shots that I didn’t shoot my rookie year and they’re like, ‘What are you doing?’ But I kept making them at a high clip.
“Eventually, they were like, ‘Man, keep shooting them.’ I credit the coaching staff, and my teammates put me in positions to be able to get those types of shots. And then my confidence built from there.”
Cavs guard Sam Merrill is shooting 41.9% from 3-point on a career-high 7.3 attempts per game this season.
Merrill’s Offseason Form Adjustment Paying Off
The Cavs’ offense is No. 6, scoring 118.4 points per 100 possessions, and Merrill has a team-best plus-7.7 net rating. The Cavs are better offensively and defensively when he is in the game.
Merrill, the last pick of the 2020 NBA Draft from Utah State, was a free agent last summer, and the Cavs had roster decisions to make. They couldn’t bring back the same squad, but they retained the 29-year-old Merrill on a four-year contract.
“We moved around a bunch my first four or five years in the league,” Merrill said. “And so being in Cleveland for a couple of years and getting to know people and everybody in the organization and the building, it’s nice to have that familiarity. Cleveland is a top-notch organization, the way they take care of me and my family and my kids. That was a big part of it for us. The trust they have in me was another reason why it was a place that I wanted to be, and I feel like so far that’s paid off.”
Merrill possesses one of the quickest shot releases, and last season, Merrill tinkered with getting his shot off even quicker. In hindsight, Merrill acknowledged, “I’m not sure it was necessary, and I had some wrist stuff that bothered me.
“Last year wasn’t the shooting season that I’m used to, or one that I wanted. It was really just two months – as bad as I’ve ever shot in my entire life. Sometimes you just get into a little rut, and it’s harder to get out of. And you start to get in your head and whatnot. I was able to figure it out and shoot better the rest of the season. But I just felt like going into this past summer, I just wanted to clean up a couple of things technically with my shot.”
Last summer, Merrill worked on slowing down his release while keeping his ability to shoot quickly. “You can get shots off,” Merrill said. “But you can take your time and focus on form.
“I felt I could do more this year than I had done last year. The last two years, I’ve mostly been a specialist off the bench who shoots 3s. If I make a few, great. If I don’t, I don’t. But I felt going into training camp and throughout training camp that one, I was shooting the ball well, but also that I felt like I could do a little more for this team and felt pretty early in the season that was going to pay off.”
The Cavs and Merrill saw a return on their partnership quickly. In the first three games of the season, he made 15-of-29 3s, and in his first 12 games, he shot 44.4% on 3s.
He has made at least five 3s in a game 11 times, including a 9-for-10 effort and a career-high 32 points – 26 in the first half, 17 in the first quarter – in a 138-113 victory against Washington on Feb. 11. Merrill’s per-36-minute scoring average is 17.5, up from 13.1 the previous season, and he’s also shooting a career-high 45.9% from the field.
“You’ve got to be able to make shots under pressure,” Merrill said. “We obviously have a lot of really good shooters and combined with our two dynamic big men (Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen) and obviously our two dynamic playmakers (Mitchell and Harden), you feel pretty confident that we’re going to get the right shots offensively. And when you’re able to space the floor, that type of pressure on the defense just makes it easier for everybody.”
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Jeff Zillgitt has covered the NBA since 2008. You can email him at jzillgitt@nba.com, find his archive here and follow him on X.
