Boban Marjanovic has become an enormous difference-maker

Exactly what has happened here — this transition for Boban Marjanovic in the eyes of his coaches and the public from an entertaining basketball intermezzo into a vital figure for an NBA team with title aspirations — was revealed fully during Game 3 of the Philadelphia 76ers’ unexpectedly difficult series against the Nets on Thursday night.

Joel Embiid was out with an injury, scrap-heap pickup Greg Monroe started, and the Nets enlivened a towel-waving crowd by attacking the basket with abandon. So Brett Brown unfurled his anything-but-secret weapon, summoning Marjanovic into a tie game just four minutes into the action. A crowd that booed Ben Simmons on every touch gave Marjanovic a hand as he entered all the same.

They didn’t realize that in this moment, their hometown team’s fate was sealed. Marjanovic scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds, and in a game where Simmons and Tobias Harris played like superstars, it can be argued that no one changed the tenor of the game into one favoring Philly quite like Marjanovic, far more capable than a steady stream of doubters would have you believe.

The coaches on both benches knew this coming in, of course, not much gets by Kenny Atkinson or Brett Brown.

“Well, he’s a very skilled player, obviously,” Atkinson said. “His size is an issue for us, it gives us a problem. And then [we] try to limit Boban’s offensive rebounding. He’s shooting the ball really well. We have to contest him a little better, so there’s stuff we can do.”

It’s a great idea in theory, but there’s not much evidence that teams can do much of anything against Marjanovic’s strengths. Atkinson pointed out that the script against him is to force Marjanovic into a game that highlights his shortcomings, a fast-paced battle of transition possessions and pick-and-rolls in the halfcourt that are supposedly his weakness.

The problem the Nets are finding in this series is that the plan reflects an outdated scouting report of Marjanovic, if, in fact, it ever really applied to him. There’s been this chorus of “Yes, but…” following Marjanovic around for his entire career. Yes, but not in bigger minutes. Yes, but not in critical games. Yes, but not against a smaller team that runs.

Yes, but he’s putting 14.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.0 blocks per game in three games against the Nets, a playoff team who runs, in critical minutes, minutes in which the 76ers have outscored the Nets by 22 points.

In Marjanovic’s eyes, he’s always been able to do this but was never given the opportunity. Even so, he’s getting better at it, something reflecting his basketball IQ.

“It’s sometime like reading the situation,” Marjanovic said, smiling at his locker, following the game. “You cannot read every situation because all good players cannot be like 100 percent, but you can try to beat the race to protect more than they can score. And because we have that nice technology right now, you can see everything, when you make a mistake, and it’s helping a lot.”

Marjanovic is never going to be an elite pick-and-roll defender, but he doesn’t have anything like a deficiency that overshadows the rest of his game. As a big defender, per Synergy, he was 281st of 416 in points per possession on the play in Los Angeles, and 258th in Philly. He’s ahead of guys like Robin Lopez, Aaron Gordon, even Monroe, on the thing that’s supposedly so problematic it keeps him from regular minutes.

That’s what Brown sees, too. It’s why he brought Marjanovic in with an open mind, waiting to see for himself what the 30-year-old center could do, and the center with 42 playoff minutes to his name entering this series has accumulated 52 over the first three games, getting significant minutes even when Embiid has been available.

“I think that he’s done an excellent job of not being exposed, not being exploited at 7-foot-3 or -4 that he is, with a track-meet style that Brooklyn’s really good at,” Brown said prior to the game. “I think the starting point with me is that, one, and then two, when you get into a halfcourt game and you’re guarding a lot of pick and rolls, I think he’s been capable of being a good rim protector.”

Brown proved prophetic in this one. On his initial possession after entering, Marjanovic did what everyone has somehow accepted as commonplace (you know, that whole most efficient center in the history of the league on a per-minute basis thing, seems like more than a throwaway skill, right?), plucking a J.J. Redick miss off the rim and slamming it home in a single, violent motion. But then, at the other end, he anticipated the Jarrett Allen slash into the lane, the easy buckets that had come so frequently early on meeting Marjanovic’s frame, and drawing the whistle: offensive foul. Philly ball.

And suddenly the Nets were hesitating before attacking, while Marjanovic created space around him at the offensive end with deft passing, a shot from the foul line extended here, a post touch there — few things look more futile than sending a help defender at Boban Marjanovic, unless that defender is parachuting from the rafters, and Marjanovic drew the foul and made the free throws, blocked Ed Davis at the other end, and Kenny Atkinson had to call a timeout because the Sixers led by 10, and had taken hold of a game they’d never relinquish.

“They played some zone the last game, we put him in the middle, you turn and face and made a few jump shots from the foul line area against their zone,” Brown said of how he instructed Marjanovic. “He has been a significant contributor to this series and certainly in the game that we just won.”

It was no different in the second quarter, Marjanovic summoned once more after the Nets had drawn close to even when he rested. His underrated passing, on display when he grabbed a long rebound, and then whipped it to his teammate and closest friend, Tobias Harris, for the 3. And on the boards, using that physical advantage, a volleyball game with himself, popping disputed basketballs higher, higher still, into the realm where only Boban can reach, and opponents can merely reach in, as Treveon Graham did, shaking his head more in wonderment than frustration as the whistle blew. There’s facing big opponents, and then there’s Boban Marjanovic, a different level of big, especially in today’s NBA.

The game going small was supposed to kill his development. Instead, all it’s done is made his strengths stronger.

To be sure, he’s still learning. Remember, Marjanovic has only been a Sixer for 22 regular season games and three playoff contests, and it was evident when Ben Simmons motioned for him to move further out on a halfcourt set, these Sixers are still learning to play with one another and seek an NBA title at the same time.

But it isn’t stopping him, not as he altered shots at one end, not when he sank a long jumper at the other end, the Nets sending out a defender to contest him as Atkinson said, but again: what’s that doing, really? Who is bothering Marjanovic’s shot up there? No one, it sailed flawlessly through the net. By halftime, the Sixers led, 65-59, and Marjanovic was a plus-15. When it ended, the Sixers won by 16, 131-115, and Marjanovic was a plus-18. Sure, plus-minus is a flawed stat. But it’s hard to argue it didn’t capture the extent to which Marjanovic was a difference-maker here.

This matters for the time beyond Thursday night, of course. Embiid didn’t play, and exactly what his knee will allow him to do for the remainder of the playoffs is an unknown, including to the Sixers, who made the call not to suit him up just minutes before the start of Game 3.

So Marjanovic, who cheerfully signed up to be a backup to “the best center in basketball”, as he frequently refers to Embiid, is something else entirely: a critical component of a championship contender. One that still has a chance because of him.

As he prepared to go off into the Brooklyn night to celebrate this latest twist in the Boban Marjanovic story, a big smile spread across his face, a frequent occurrence. He makes a point of always enjoying life on the basketball court, whether he plays much or not. But it’s easier now than ever, with his role and what he has known he could be coming into alignment, finally.

“I think we are blessed to be here, first of all,” Marjanovic said. “And I appreciate, every day, the time I’m spending with my teammates, spending with all my coaches with this team. And we are healthy. So why wouldn’t I have a huge smile on my face?”