{"id":560937,"date":"2026-01-26T01:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/560937\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T01:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:18:13","slug":"cavs-receive-much-needed-good-news-in-latest-injury-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/560937\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavs receive much-needed good news in latest injury report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/fearthesword.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> could be seeing the return of one of their key bench players. Sam Merrill, who has missed the team\u2019s last five games with a right-hand sprain, is listed as questionable for Monday\u2019s game against the Orlando Magic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Merrill has been dealing with a hand sprain for much of the season. He injured it originally in a November win against the <a href=\"http:\/\/brewhoops.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>. This resulted in him missing just over a month of games. When he did return to the lineup, he wasn\u2019t pain-free, as head coach Kenny Atkinson said at the time that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fearthesword.com\/cavs-news\/42311\/cavs-sam-merrill-michael-jordan-cleveland-cavaliers-kenny-atkinson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he couldn\u2019t even shake Merrill\u2019s hand after games<\/a> due to the pain he was in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">We don\u2019t have any further updates on Garland\u2019s injury beyond what <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fearthesword.com\/cavs-injury-report\/43160\/cavs-announce-injury-update-for-darius-garland\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the team released last Sunday<\/a>. The Cavs said that Garland would be reevaluated in seven to 10 days after suffering a Grade 1 right great toe sprain. That initial timeframe would put the reevaluation happening anytime between now and Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">On the season, Merrill is averaging 13.8 points on .470\/.455\/.882 shooting splits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Magic will once again be without their leading scorer, Franz Wagner (ankle), in Monday\u2019s rematch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers could be seeing the return of one of their key bench players. Sam Merrill, who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,148,48,6,47,76,3883],"class_list":{"0":"post-560937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavs-injury-report","10":"tag-magic","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-orlando-magic","14":"tag-orlandomagic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}