Rain or Shine woke up in the second half to come back and beat the younger Converge, 124-120, to seize Game 1 of their PBA Season 50 Governors’ Cup quarterfinal series on Tuesday night at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
The Elasto Painters began to turn it around in the third quarter by taking an 85-81 lead behind hot shooting from deep, before fully taking control of the bout in the payoff period toward completing the rally from as much as 21 down.
Adrian Nocum broke the 103-all deadlock with a tough conversion and that sparked the decisive 9-3 run—capped by an Aaron Fuller hook shot—for the 112-106 lead with 5:29 to go, putting them ahead the rest of the way.
Caelan Tiongson and Fuller went on to close it out with separate perfect trips to the foul line in the final 15 seconds enabled RoS to gain the head start in the best-of-5 series, giving them a chance to go 2-0 in Game 2 on Friday.
Nocum led the way with 26 points and nine assists.
