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Hello and welcome to the Chase Down Podcast. The Chase Down is presented by Fubo, the official streaming partner of the Calves. Watch over three hundred and fifty channels of live sports and TV, including FanDuel Sports Network without cable. There's no cost, there is no commitment. Try for free at FuboTV dot com Slash Calves. We got a special episode for you guys. No justin here today. It is a playoff preview podcast dropping on a Friday.
How about that.
We never post on Fridays, but we had to for a very special reason. I was able to sit down with both Sam Merril and Johnny Bryant, Caves assistant Johnny Bryant, Calves guard Sam Merril to kind of preview the playoffs, talk about the season that was, and it was just a it was a blast. We had about ten to fifteen minutes with each of the guys, so figured we'd drop a little surprise episode in your feed. So without further ado enjoy. Sam Merrill. All right, I am joined
by Cavaliers guard Sam Merrill as we head into the postseason. Sam, how you doing man?
I'm doing great.
How are you not too bad? Thank you for coming back on. You're officially a friend of the Pod, which I'm sure is quite the honor for you, probably going right up on the mantle.
We'll send you a plaque.
But you know, first off, thank you and congrats on an amazing season. I want to start with the really important gritty stuff, which is all the practice shenanigans you guys have had this year playing football, playing soccer. We had Dean on earlier in the year and I asked, like, who stands out and he mentioned your name as a standout performer. Are you willing to say you're the best multi sport athlete on the team.
Yeah, I don't think it's debatable. I mean I played three sports in high school. I don't know how many guys played even too. I know Max played baseball. I will say a sneaky good because there's like there's athleticism like jumping running, which obviously on NBA level is not quite my strong shuit. And then there's athleticism of you know, being able to pick up things and player the sports and stuff. But it's a sneaky good athlete on our team is Craig. He could pick up things pretty quickly
and he does a pretty good job as well. But yeah, me Max Craig being a little bits. It's crazy. You see some of these guys who are the best athletes in the world try and play pick a ball or swing a baseball bat or something like that, and it's it's not pretty well.
Shouts to Craig, Shouts to you. Moving on.
Ty Jerome was just recently on doing a little bit of an interview and he got asked you who the biggest trash talker on the team was, and he threw out your name as a sneaky like everyone thinks Sam is this nice guy, but he's got he's got an edge to him. Do you have any response to Tye throwing you under the bus like that.
No, I appreciate him noticing.
I'm not a trash talk You'll never see me say anything like sue another player on another team during a game.
But yeah, I can see where he's coming from.
I'll say some things on the bench to my teammates about other players, or make jokes in practice or whatnot, or in the locker room.
So I do appreciate that he notices that I do have a little edge to me.
Yeah, you know, we're all nice when we want to be. But you know, when the competitive juices get blown, you can't you can't help it deep down, even if you're not externalizing it too much. I want to pivot to, you know, the macro season. Obviously it's been an unbelievable year. How much was the fact that this was basically a
roster runback? You know, obviously adding tie to the rotation was a big change, and obviously DeAndre came in at the deadline, but you know, for the most part, like geames that like teams don't normally run back their top eleven twelve guys in the rotation. How much did that mean to this, to this roster coming in and and and how much did that kind of precipitate this banana season that you guys just had.
Yeah, I do think it's really important.
It obviously speaks to the belief that the front office and the new coaching staff had in this roster and what the roster has been able to do up to this point, Like you said, you know, Tie coming in and having a great year.
Has been big for us. But then like it's we live in such a you.
Know, a twenty four hour news cycle world where everyone wants to change something if it doesn't work right. But like look at you look at the seasons that Darius and Evan had, the improvements that they made. Darius, you know, coming back from everything that he had to go through last season, then Evan just getting better and better, Like
those are are big things. And then you know all of us roll guys finding ways to get better and finding ways to to help the team along with you know, everything that the new staff brought.
I think I think that all played a part in it.
Yeah, well, you know, I do want to dig a little further on that because we also have seen the other side of the coin. In NBA history, we've had a team where hey, we're gonna run it back one more year, and the vibes are just wrong, you know, like things did not you know, you could tell that a team had run its course, you know, after two three years together. Why wasn't that the case here?
Uh, we just we don't have any bad nudes on our team, and that's seems pretty simple. But like there's when your stars have no ego, but obviously listen, they're superstars, like they got some alpha to them, right, But like Donovan is a great leader, Darius has been a great
leader this year. You got Jay who's the most low maintenance guy in the league probably, and then you got Devin who's you know, trying to find his way obviously as like as like a star, but he's also super low key, super low maintenance, really quiet, Like that type of stuff isn't as common as I think people would would like. So I think that was a huge reason why we were able to run it back and have the success that we've had at this point.
Yeah, it's a it's another another like feather in the cap for the front office, right that you know they've built a team of genuinely pretty good dudes, and you know, even from a very far away seat, it's pretty clear, you know, uh, and to your point, like everyone's going to have ego, like it's an occupational hazard, Like you probably need some of it if you're going if you're gonna make it in this league.
But being.
Genuinely kind and and friendly goes a long long way going from you know, the the mintal side to the physical side. And I'm furiously knocking on wood all over my office right now. The group's pretty darn healthy coming
into the playoffs. How much does that mean in terms of, you know, not just the ability to play well in round one, but you know, the ability to kind of extend across the grind of a postseason, Like you know, you've you've been all the way to the end, you know, and and won a title with Milwaukee, Like how important is it to have that starting point? B we're pretty healthy, knowing that some physical battles are to come.
Yeah, it's it's it's so important.
I remember at some point during the season because I'm Won's sorry abou Kenny and the staff have done such a good job of managing minutes and managing lows and whatnot and trying to get to this point healthy. And you know, Kenny, I think it might have been our first game back after all Star break, was like was asking us what's the biggest reason why teams don't win titles? And we were trying to say all all different types of things, and he just goes health like that's the
number one thing you have to have. You have to be healthy. Like, if one of your best players gets hurt, are in real trouble. But if a couple of your rotation guys get hurt, you're in trouble.
So, you know, I.
Think the fact that we're healthy right now is like you said, it's a huge thing for us, and hopefully, you know, starting with this first round, which is obviously all we're worried about right now, we can continue to stay.
Healthy moving into that minut's discussion. You know how important and like just kind of nice is it for you as a role player to have a coach that is so you know, I wouldn't say rigid, but like really does believe in his rot in his rotational philosophy. Like at one point early in the season, my coast like was looking at the check in time for certain guys in the first quarter and it's like six minute time out,
these guys are gonna come in. Like how nice is it for you, especially as a shooter, to like know the routine even all the way into the end of the game rotationally.
Yeah, it's it's really nice. You generally have a pretty good idea of like you said, when you're gonna go in so I can start to get my leg's moving a little bit a couple of minutes before that, do whatever you need to do, Like that's really important. Obviously, playoffs all bits are off, like who knows how it's gonna go or and whatnot. But you know, Kenny has has a belief in this, in this whole roster. He's he said it all year and he's backed it up
with the opportunities that he's given us. So and it's he keeps saying like it's it's for moments like this. You never know when you're gonna need someone uh to step up and knocked out a shot or get a rebound or make a player or whatever.
How do you how do you kind of balance the playoff mentality? Obviously this team won you know, mid sixties games and we're really really great playing exactly the way
you played. How do you balance maintaining your identity as a team versus the little tweaks that you do have to make in a seven game series when teams are scouting you a lot more thoroughly, they're making more active adjustments, Like how do you tell that line as a player and as a team and as an organization between here's who we are and here's the things we are willing to kind of adjust and change over the course of a series or a playoffs.
Yeah, like you said, obviously, scout reports are much more in depth, and you know, the good teams will take certain things away and you're gonna have to adjust to that. And the game does slow down to an extent, but I think it's you know, the teams that get themselves in trouble are the teams that try and play just playoff basketball right and walk the ball up the floor the whole time, and just try and mismatch hunt the whole game.
Like there are only a few guys in the.
League that can really really do that for an entire game and and get the right shots for their team.
So like you look at I mean, the Warriors have done it for years.
Like the game slows down a little bit, but they can still play with their pace and they're cutting and their screening. And we watched Indiana do it last year, Like they didn't slow down. They kept going, kept playing fast, kept playing with pace. So like you said, there's a line of you know, laying games. You got to make sure you're getting the right shots and getting the ball to the right people and maybe going after certain people. But at the same time, like, there's a reason we've
been so good, so let's play that way. Let's keep sharing the ball, let's keep cutting, let's keep moving. I think if you do that, and if you do that with with pace obviously upping the level of physicality and pace and whatnot, you're going to still get the shots that you want.
All right, last question, how is the team handling goal setting heading into this? You know, is it a is it a one game at a time kind of philosophy? Are you guys saying we, you know, let's go win a ring.
It has to be a little of both, Like, sure, we know exactly where we want to go, if that's no secret, we believe we're capable of that, But you can't get there if you don't win game one. We don't even know who we're playing at this point, so this this week's mostly just been about macro playoff ideas and adjustments and just you know, practicing and competing and
getting after it. So, uh, you know, once we know who we're playing, we'll scout them accordingly and try and go win game one and then hopefully try and go in Game two, but obviously with the idea that we want to do something special awesome.
Well, thank you so much. Congratulations on my personal favorite Cavs season as a fan. It was just an absolute honor and joy to watch you. And you know, I always say that this is our hobby, you know, and you made our hobby super duper fun all year. So thank you very much personally and from Cavs fans everywhere.
Appreciate it.
Man.
Hopefully we can make it fun for a couple more months here.
All right.
That was Cleveland Cavaliers guard Sam Merrill doing his best work, and only you can do your best work. Zoom aia Companion can help you do the rest, like automatically taking notes, answering meeting questions, and helping you respond to your coworker. Available at no additional cost with eligible paid plans. We're happy with zoom ai Companion. That's not all, folks, sind thank you so much to Sam. But the party doesn't
stop here. We've got Calves assistant Johnny Bryant talking about how his expectations changed over the course of the season, his relationship with Donovan Mitchell, and much more without further ado.
Johnny Bryant.
Hello everyone, I am joined by Cavs assistant coach Johnny Bryant.
How you doing, Johnny, I'm doing well. How about you? Not too bad? I am.
I'm Jonson. The playoffser here. It's like, it's my favorite time of year. I'm just I'm just going to be an absolute fiend watching hoops for the next several months and there's nothing better in the world.
Yeah, this is you know, which you do prepare for in the summer during the season to get opportunity to play postseason basketball, right, and you know, I've had experience being here in the playoffs previously, and now to have these fans rooting for us, I can't wait too experience it.
So, you know, it's your first year with the Cavs, obviously, I mean this is like kind of an obvious question, but like, just how far did this season exceed your expectations coming in?
You know, as the staff, we joke about it collectively a lot. Right then the preseason we go on for we're in Chicago and you know, we're trying to get everybody acclimated and we're like, okay, let's you know, we want to win the game.
So we try to win the game.
We didn't do that and go to overtime, we lose, and it was like okay, And then you start the season win five, then you nine in a row. Now Golden State comes to town, they're playing well, win ten and you know, get to fifteen, lose the Boston. Then you you know, you start putting these stretches together, double figure wins, and now you're like you're sitting on the bench and after games you're like, okay, are we really
that good? And then now you look up it's thirty five games in and you know you're stealing single digits as far as losses, and you know, you just continue to ride the wave and you know, it's been a year that I didn't expect. It's been great, it's been fun, and you know that part of the season is over. Now we're looking forward to the playoffs.
When did you know that, like, oh we might be something like a different kind of special then like maybe I've been.
A part of.
I wouldn't say it was a particular game, but you we you know, collectively, like I said, as a staff, we'll.
Be on the bench like are we really that good? Or you know, it was a couple of.
Games we were down and we come back and win the game, and you like, the ball just bounces our way, a shot goes in or you know will come out. It's supposed to be a big game, and then we
have a crazy blowout win. So you start putting those things together and you're like, wow, Like there was one stretch we didn't lose for five weeks, Like that's unheard of, right, So when you're putting together those type of stretches throughout the season, you look up and it's like, Okay, I guess we are really good.
Did anything, you know, going all the way back to Sarasota, did anything like really jump out at you, even at the camp level where you were like, oh, I wasn't expecting that to work the way it did, or I wasn't expecting this guy to be as good as he was, Like, did anything like really buck your expectations?
Like at an individual level.
You know, I was pretty familiar with the with the roster, but when you when you look at a team, you know, three four times a year, it's hard to really gauge who can do what right, And we had different things that we want to do from from previous years, and you know Tid Jerome, you know, obviously he stood out. I knew Darius was comfortable with Darius just watching on film, but to realize how fast he is, right you know, Evan, how talented he is, and you know how great Jaa
is on the defense end. So it's when you see it every day, you're like, okay, this is different. So I wouldn't say Sarasota was was was glaring and was like, hey, you know, I got all that information, but it was just day in and day out. You start seeing things, and you start seeing things during the game, and it's like, okay, this is a different group than I expected.
Absolutely, And you know, the one guy that you didn't mentioned there because this guy you probably know the best is Donovan, and your relationship with Donovan is like super well reported that, Like you guys have just been like this, you know, from from back in Utah. And did you ever expect to coach him again after you at that time together. I know it's a small world, but did you ever expect to coach him again?
Uh?
No, you know, but our relationship, you know, I never really stopped coaching him, to be honest, you know, I just wasn't with him, you know, day to day. But you know, we we built a great relationship as you mentioned as well document it, and you know, if he had any questions throughout our time away, I mean, some things are bigger than basketball, right, So saying hey, like what do you think here, he'll ask me and I'll
kind of tell him. So I wasn't with him day to day, but you know, it was an opportunity where again, it's not like I'm with New York and he's with Cleveland and we can't talk like who's who's unity exactly exactly. So, but to come back around and coach him again is
something special. And for us to put together a historic year together, that's something that you know, at the end of the day that we'll talk about for the rest of our lives, not just this moment in time now, but when he's retired, when I'm you know, later in my coaching career, and we'll sit back and be like, you know, we're able to accomplish some great things together. And that's ultimately what it's about, is is creating those memories, creating those bonds through the game of basketball.
Was there anything you know, obviously you mentioned you never stopped, you know, being in contact with them, talking to them, talking through things. But getting back into the day to day. Was there anything that jumped out at you, ors like, oh, that this is different about him, whether it's approach the game, the way he understood the game, leadership, maturity, whatever it is, anything jump out at you.
You know that this is being as transparent as possible. Well, I told him probably a month and I was like, I forgot how frustrating it is the coaching, you know, and and I'm hard on him and he.
Knows that and he likes to be pushed that way.
But it's sometimes like Donovan Night, you okay, this guy is trapping you, Like why were you trying to split this?
You know?
So, but it's it's more and in fun, right, But you know, just his growth, his his leadership, how vocal he is. Clearly I seen it in Utah as he continued to progress, he was very vocal with the group and he found himself. He's very comfortable in who he is. So to be honest, nothing really surprised me as far as who he shows on a day to day basis.
That that makes perfect sense. And you probably wouldn't have a good relationship with him if you never got frustrated. Like no coach ever doesn't get grumpy, especially with their best player.
That's yeah, but it's important.
But the reality is like, even when I'm mad at him, I'm not really mad at him. It's more like I'm pushing his buttons just to get him to respond and he you know, it's more of a mental part of it than anything else. Like, you know, there's he told the story about being in Washington, you know, a couple of weeks ago, and that got out that you know, I you know, had some choice words for him. But literally before I did it, I told George Nang and Tristan I said, watch this and.
So so up exactly exactly.
And then George is like, oh, t t watch this, watch this, and then you know, but it caught everybody by surprise just because of my personality. But you know, he knows at the end of the day, I care about him, you know. And then again, our relationship is bigger than basketball, and he knows that I want the best for him and I want to be successful in every situation.
Yeah, the best relationships always have that, uh, that that you have to be honest, you have to be able to be transpared with some absolutely absolutely, so that makes perfect sense. I wanted to take it kind of back to the macro. You know, obviously you joined Kenny's staff pretty much. I mean not a one turnover for the coaching staff, but a lot of new faces this year, but with a very very similar roster year over year.
There's a ton of continuity there. And something I've said a lot about what I've appreciated the most about this coaching staff from AFAR is that it really seems like everyone in this staff wanted to coach the roster they signed up to coach, like this was a roster that you know, going into last summer, there was a lot of like, oh it is the two big thing going to work? Is the two guard thing going to work.
It does seem, at least from my seat, that this staff really did believe in that group, in the way this team was structured. Can you talk a little bit about that about you know, believing in the core that this team had already put together.
You know, if you look at the group the last few years playoff experience, you know, Kobe and his staff has done an unbelievable job, you know, drafting and keeping guys here, making trade. So the group that they put together, you know, he believed in it. We believed in it, right, And it's our job as coaches to figure out what work what doesn't work. Hey, this was this was great previously, this wasn't great previously. So how can we change it?
How can we manipulate space? And can we change lineups? Can we change combinations? And you know we did that right. You know, last year it was a lot of you know, Ja and and Donovan together, you know that pairing exactly. Then this year was like, hey, let's we know that's good, but let's take a look at.
Evan and Donovan right. So now d G and J together, right.
So, you know, it's our job to try to put the pieces to the puzzle together, and once you have an idea, you look at the end and see if it supports it, and then that kind of drives the process of development and growth as a group.
And you know, we were able to put some things together.
This is maybe a silly question, but something my co hosts and I were talking about recently is it almost hard to look at the analytics for your group right now because you just don't have any lineups that don't work.
Like no, like how do you figure out who to play?
More of? It's good, it's not hard. You know. We believe in analytics. We believe in what they show us.
And sometimes we're sitting and coaching me and hey, what about this and we look at it, Oh, that's not a good idea. And sometimes you know, we'll make a decision and like why didn't we get to this lineup? Or we should have did this differently? And you know, every game as a staff, who do you want to finish with? You know, so you know we we have finished different ways, whether too Bigs or Ja or Evan or you know, Max Dean.
It's dray.
I like, it's one of those things where you know you have the information, but then you also have to go on field, right and we try to do the best that we can. And this group has done a great job sacrifice and coach he's done a great job
of hammering at home with the group. And you know, I think it's a little easier to sacrifice when you win sixty four games, right, so now it's gonna be another you know, element and level of sacrifice on our guys part in the playoffs because again, playoffs matchups that dictate who plays and lineups, combinations, you know, all those things.
So now it's like.
We need everybody on board to achieve the common goal that we have.
All right, last question and I'll let you get out of here. How do you balance as you head into that postseason, the the push and pull of a long playoff series, of multiple playoff series where the scouts are better, the you know, the intensity is higher and you're gonna you know, and figuring out how many adjustments to make
versus maintaining your core identity. You know, how do you kind of toe that line between hey, we won sixty four games, we're super good the way we are, and we have to tweak X, Y and Z.
Yeah.
I mean it's funny you ask that question because we literally just talked about that as a staff. You know, you definitely want to double down on your habits, right, but to your point, with the game planning and all the adjustments you have to be able to adjust on the fly. You're not going to be able to you know, always call a timeout. So that's where the communication piece comes in with the group. And then in the timeout
you make those adjustments. But you know, we've worked on certain situations throughout the year, you know, whether it's in game or in practice, to where we're prepared to make any adjustments that we need. And again that that that's one of those things where we do utilize analytics to put together a game plan and be like, okay, like this information is good for us, now we should do
this in this type of action. Right, and then once we had that primary coverage in place, and it's like, okay, that's what our adjustment will be, right, and then we may have another adjustment. But you know, at the end of the day, if we can go in with our primary coverages and our primary offensive scheme and we can win two three games without making a huge adjustment, why not. Right, So we're just we're prepared for those situations.
But at the end of the day, we have to be who we are. We have to be a you know, a competitive group.
We got to play together and at the same time understand that you know it's gonna be a little tougher. But you know, we've had physical games before. You know, we had games where we shot it well and won. We had a games when we didn't shoot it well in one. So we just got to go in and understand each day is gonna be dif friend and find a way to come out victorious in each each game we play awesome.
Well, thank you so much, Johnny. You know I just said this to Sam, but I just wanted to thank you so much for the season. I mean, more than anything, I'm a Cavaliers fan. I love this team and it's it's my favorite hobby and you guys made my favorite hobby super duper fun all year. And like you know, it's definitely my favorite Cavs regular season of my life. And so thank you for helping lead the team on the way there because it was, uh, it was just a dope, dope six months many.
No thanks for having me, and you know it's this is a special you know, fan base community, and you know to to you know, I have been talking to T T and and and everybody just kind of around the city that I wait to see you experienced Cleveland in the playoffs and and we're here now and I can't wait to see uh the fans rooting and cheering us on.
I'll be one of those fans on Sunday. So can't wait Johnny, thank you so much for coming on and good luck.
In the playfuts. Appreciate it. Thank you all right.
Thank you so much to both Caves assistant coach Johnny Bryant and Cavs guard Samuel for joining the podcast and give us a little glimpse into what it's been like to be a part of this absolutely historic season for the Cavaliers. Thank you so much for listening to the Chasetown Podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and like to subscribe to the Cavaliers YouTube page. If you are listening, subscribe, unsubscribe, or you subscribe, help cook those books.
Thank you so much for listening, and as always, go Cavs.