Converge turned to its bench mob to spoil TNT’s formal entry into the playoffs with a 107-103 upset in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup Wednesday night at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.
The FiberXers squeezed out 52 points from the bench and it was reliever Schonny Winston who scored the team’s last five points that staved off the Tropang Giga’s last-ditched comeback attempt.
“Throughout the game, our second group won it for us,” Converge head coach Aldin Ayo said as his squad finished its campaign on a high note albeit at the last spot with a 2-9 win-loss record.
“I’ve been challenging the second group to play harder than the first group. We have lots of players in the second team that had double digits in terms of score. But more than the scores, the defense that they applied against the small guys of Talk ‘N Text keyed in our victory.”
Aljun Melecio came off the bench to finish with 17 points, Winston had 13 markers and seven rebounds while Patrick Maagdenberg got 12 points to account for the bulk of the FiberXers' bench points.
Bryan Santos had 15 markers, Justine Arana got 15 points and eight rebounds for the FiberXers, who almost squandered a 16-point lead in the fourth. Alec Stockton had a bad day with just four points on 1-of-9 field goal shooting.
Converge got in trouble after building a 98-82 separation in the last 6:56 as the Tropang Giga sparked a 17-4 rally to close the gap, 99-102, on a couple of charities by Glenn Khobuntin with 2:32 left.
Winston answered with a jumper and followed it up with a split from the line after Khobuntin got 1-of-2 from the foul line on the other end.
RR Pogoy got TNT closer with a triple, 103-105, but Winston made it a two-possession ball game with 10.7 ticks left with two foul shots.
Tropang Giga fell to a 5-5 card tied with Meralco, Rain or Shine and Terrafirma in a dangerous position that could put them in a possible playoff for the last quarters spot if they would drop their last game against Magnolia on Sunday.
Calvin Oftana saw his 33 points and 12 rebounds go to waste in TNT’s costly defeat. Pogoy had 29 markers while Kim Aurin and Khobutin made 13 and 11, respectively.
Box scores:
CONVERGE (107) --– Melecio 17, Arana 15, Santos 15, Winston 13, Maagdenberg 12, Fornilos 8, Delos Santos 7, Stockton 4, Andrade, Nieto 0
TNT (103) --- Oftana 33, Pogoy 29, Aurin 13, Khobuntin 11, Ponferrada 7, Castro 4, B.Ganuelas-Rosser 2, Ebona 2, Varilla 2, Reyes 0, Montalbo 0
Quarters: 31-31, 57-52, 83-77, 107-103