By REYNALD MAGALLON
NLEX survived a furious fourth-quarter rally by Terrafirma and escaped with a 101-100 victory to improve to 2-0 in Group A of the PBA Season 50 Governors’ Cup at the Ynares Center in Montalban on Sunday, July 12.
The Road Warriors unleashed a blistering 18-0 second-quarter run to seize control and build a commanding 23-point lead, which proved enough to withstand the Dyip’s spirited late rally.
NLEX had a comfortable 90-67 lead heading into the payoff period but Maverick Ahanmisi, Juami Tiongson and CJ Catapusan all came alive to suddenly pull Terrafirma within one, 101-100 in the waning seconds.
The Dyip actually had the last chance at winning the game in the last 10 seconds but import Justin Strings missed what could have been a game-winning triple at the buzzer.
Dequan Jones led NLEX with 30 points, seven rebounds and four assists while Robert Bolick chipped in 12 points, seven assists and four rebounds — none bigger than the four-pointer that gave his team a 101-91 lead, an extra buffer to weather the Terrafirma storm in the end.
Meanwhile, Converge pounced on the import-less Titan Ultra and cruised to an easy 105-74 win.
The FiberXers had to shake off some cobwebs in the early goings of the contest but quickly opened the floodgates when they finally got their rhythm going en route to the commanding debut in the season-ending conference.
Without a foreign reinforcement to challenge them inside, the frontline of import Jalen Hudson and Justin Arana muscled their way inside with the former announcing his PBA return with 20 points eight rebounds and four steals while the latter put up 14 points and five rebounds.
