Nasty sendoff

Games today:

(Ynares Center-Antipolo)

5:15 p.m. — Titan Ultra

vs Terrafirma

7:30 p.m. — Blackwater

vs Rain or Shine

Converge primed up for a marquee match to end the group play with a bloodbath over a team the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is more than happy to let go.

The FiberXers massacred an already checked-out guest team Macau, 162-108, for their fourth straight win in Group A of Season 50 Governors’ Cup on Friday night at the Ynares Center-Antipolo.

Converge head coach Delta Pineda emptied his bench in the wire-to-wire blowout and gave all his 15 available players time on the court. Only Ladis Lepalam, who had over four minutes of action, failed to score.

Import Cameron Clark had a near-perfect shooting from the field, hitting 14 of his 15 attempts to finish with 32 points for the FibeXers, who registered a franchise-best scoring output against the defenseless Giant Pandas.

Seven other players scored in double-figures as Converge tied defending champion TNT in third to fourth with a 7-4 win-loss record.

Converge’s victory gave the squad the much-needed momentum and morale-boost ahead of Sunday’s meeting with the Tropang 5G in a showdown that will determine their seeding into the crossover quarterfinals.

“We have a very important game on Sunday, so we built our guys’ confidence. All of them were given time inside the court to give them confidence and for them to play defense. That’s our focus,” Pineda said.

Justin Arana added 16 points and 10 rebounds while Frederick Tungcab made the most of his time on the floor with 15 points, seven assists, five rebounds, five steals and a block for the FiberXers.

Justine Baltazar had a near triple-double of 14 points, 12 boards and six assists, Juan Gomez de Liaño filled his stats box with a second straight triple-double of 13 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds while John Lloyd Clemente scored 13 for Converge. Ronan Santos and Alec Stockton got 11 and 10 points, respectively.

“I feel like it was a good game overall. I feel like we’ve picked up defensively that led to a lot of easy buckets in transition,” Clark said.

“We have a tough game coming up on Sunday. But we have to take it one game at a time. We’re looking forward to competing on Sunday,” he added.

It was all over but the shouting for Converge at the halftime intermission as the FiberXers already built a commanding 27-point lead.

Converge poured 83 points in the second half and Pineda pulled out Clark for good after five minutes of play in the third period.

Santos’ layup with four seconds left in the game gave the FiberXers their biggest lead of the game and the final count.

The match served as Macau’s farewell after a futile two-conference participation in Asia’s first play-for-pay cage league.

The Giant Pandas finished their campaign with six straight defeats for a mediocre 2-10 record.

Kobey Lam closed his PBA stint with 49 points on 16-of-40 field goal shooting for Macau, which lost by 55 points against TNT last Tuesday and a league-worst 60-point beating to NLEX on 7 October.

Oscar Lopez Jr. added 27 points and nine boards while Xingzhao Chao and Meng Sun posted 13 and 10 points, respectively, for the Giant Pandas.