ANTIPOLO – Simon Enciso and Roger Pogoy dealt the killer blows from downtown as TNT thwarted San Miguel, 89-84, to finally get on board in the PBA Season 49 Philippine Cup at the Ynares Center here on Sunday night.
The returning playmaker nailed one from the left corner to finish a broken play nicely and push their lead to 86-80 with exactly 49 seconds left, allowing him to pull off a bow-and-arrow celebration directed toward his former team.
He then found Pogoy open at the other corner for the other trifecta to widen the spread to seven, 89-82, with 13.4 seconds left, all but sealing the much-needed win for the Tropang 5G after starting the conference with three losses.
(C) PBA Images
Those shots, furthermore, helped preserve the import-like performance of Calvin Oftana, who finished with a team-high 23 points and a career-best 21 rebounds, along with six assists, a steal, and a block in 39 minutes of action.
The young winger dropped 12 of his points in the third canto as he led their 9-0 rally to build a 67-58 advantage. That put them in the driver’s seat for good before the aforementioned backcourt tandem closed it out strongly.
“There’s relief to finally get a W. But it was a matter of us taking a close look at ourselves, some real brutal reflection,” said head coach Chot Reyes.
“We were talking about why we can’t do this, why we can’t do that in our first three games. Until we realized we can’t go back to the old TNT game because this is a vastly different team without Rondae and Jayson,” he added.
Rey Nambatac finished with 15 points and five assists, netting a solid plus-minus rating of +20 as the Season 49 Commissioner’s Cup Finals MVP finally got his groove back after struggling during their woeful start.
Pogoy wound up with 14 points while Simon Enciso tallied 13 points, two rebounds, and four assists as he showed up against his former team.
Kelly Williams added 12 points and six rebounds for the Tropa, who connected for 14 threes and dished out a total of 20 assists in the breakthrough.
“Sinabi ni Coach yesterday sa huddle namin was to just show up. ‘Yun ‘yung bagay na wala sa amin the past three games,” Oftana said.
Now hoping that it has finally turned the corner, TNT will look to win another when it takes on the struggling Terrafirma on Friday, May 9, at the Philsports Arena in Pasig, facing a team that’s lost four of its five outings.
(C) PBA Images
CJ Perez, meanwhile, top-scored for San Miguel with 26 points, six rebounds, and five assists as they fell to 3-2 following the defeat.
The one-time BPC started out strong when he went 4-of-5 from three in the first quarter and had 14 points, but found himself silenced during the second half.
June Mar Fajardo made 21 points and 14 rebounds. Juami Tiongson had 15 points, while Marcio Lassiter added 14.
The tandem spearheaded the Beermen’s assault in the game’s last 24 minutes, only to fall short in the end.
SMB will have a week to recover before aiming for an immediate bounce-back against Phoenix next Sunday, May 11, at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
The Scores:
TNT 89 – Oftana 23, Nambatac 15, Pogoy 14, Enciso 13, Williams 12, Khobuntin 8, Erram 4, Heruela 0, Razon 0, Aurin 0.
San Miguel 84 – Perez 26, Fajardo 21, Tiongson 15, Lassiter 14, Cruz 6, Brondial 2, Tautuaa 0, Teng 0, Ross 0, Trollano 0, Rosales 0, Cahilig 0.
Quarterscores: 26-26, 44-39, 71-62, 89-84.
#WATCH: Chot Reyes and Calvin Oftana breathe a sigh of relief as TNT finally snaps their painful losing streak
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