Philadelphia 76ers: Boban Marjanovic should be benched

Philadelphia 76ers center Boban Marjanovic has proven himself to be unplayable against the Toronto Raptors just based on his game one performance.

There was little doubt that the play of Boban Marjanovic was one of the keys to success that helped the Philadelphia 76ers win their first round series against the Brooklyn Nets. He was able to spell starting center Joel Embiid and played very well for those stretches. However, after just one game against the Toronto Raptors in the second round of the postseason, Marjanovic is now hurting the Sixers.

The two reasons why Marjanovic was so effective against the Nets was due to a big size advantage at 7-foot-3 and the fact that the Nets didn’t have big men that couldn’t stretch the floor. That allowed the European big man to drop on pick-and-rolls that the Nets ran with and not be exposed on that type of play.

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Sadly entering the second round, Marjanovic doesn’t have those advantages. The Nets have Jarrett Allen at 6-foot-11 and Ed Davis at 6-foot-10 to throw at Marjanovic, which didn’t really bother the European big man and he averaged 10.8 points against Brooklyn in five games. However, the Raptors have Marc Gasol at 7-foot-1 and Serge Ibaka at 6-foot-10.

There’s not much of a size advantage against the Raptors especially with Marjanovic only having two inches on Gasol. Both Gasol and Ibaka are shot blockers too, so there’s no real advantage to posting him up. Despite not having an advantage on offense, the disadvantage on defense is the biggest concern moving forward.

Both Gasol and Ibaka have the ability to stretch the floor. Gasol has shot 36.3 percent from the 3-point line this season and Ibaka has shot 29.0 percent from downtown. Gasol, more than Ibaka, can stretch the floor, but both are threats.This puts Marjanovic in a tough spot when the Raptors run pick-and-pops. Whichever of Toronto’s centers are in will pop out to the 3-point line and be ready to shoot if the ball is kicked out to them.

This isn’t good for the Sixers. Due to Marjanovic’s massive size, he isn’t the quickest to recover out to the 3-point line if he drops down on the pick-and-pop. On the flip side, if he stays home on the stretch big that’s on the court, then it opens up the paint for the ball handler on play and yet again he isn’t quick enough to recover to defend the basket.

Marjanovic only played 10 minutes in game one and was a negative when he played. He only scored two points on 1-2 shots and was a plus/minus -17. In the second quarter, there was a point that the Sixers were only down by three points with the score at 39-42 before Marjanovic came in for Embiid. The Raptors went on a 11-6 run during the stretch that Marjanovic played and the combo of Gasol/Ibaka went 1-3 on 3-pointers during that stretch.

It’s clear that head coach Brett Brown has to make a change. The ideal situation would be that Mike Scott (who is injured) would be ready to play in game two and he, along with Ben Simmons, could split the backup center role.

In the case that Scott’s not ready, then Brown has seemed comfortable playing Jonah Bolden in game one, although most of that was at the power forward spot. Bolden could be an option as backup center although foul problems could be an issue if he got extended minutes at that spot. Brown could also consider Amir Johnson or Greg Monroe as well. Both are veterans with playoff experience.

Regardless of whoever Brown chooses to take over backup center duties, it’s clear that Marjanovic filling the role will not yield positive results for the Philadelphia 76ers in this second round matchup against the Raptors.