CONVERGE dragged highly-favored San Miguel Beer into a winner-take-all showdown behind a morale-boosting 114-100 win in their PBA Governors Cup quarterfinals series on Friday night at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
Playing with nothing to lose, the FiberXers put the pressure on June Mar Fajardo and Co. by making one clutch play after another - none bigger than Bryan Santos' back-to-back three-pointers in the home stretch to make it a 109-95 contest.
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That was enough to take Game 4 and tie at 2-2 a best-of-five series that the powerhouse Beermen were expected to close without much trouble.
Now the multi-titled team will have to go through a do-or-die Game 5 on Sunday at the Ynares Center in Antipolo to earn its place in a best-of-seven semifinal series against Barangay Ginebra.
“We just banked on hope in Game 3 because we were down 2-0. And now we banked on grit. We’ll bring that hope and grit to Game 5,” said Converge coach Franco Atienza.
Sophomore guard Deschon Winston topscored with 26 points, including 16 in the third period when the FiberXers began to put separation between them and the Beermen.
Justin Arana added 25 points and eight rebounds, and import Jalen Jones had 22 and eight assists in Converge's best performance yet in the playoffs series.
Converge now has a chance to become the first team to come back from 0-2 down and win a best-of-five since Barangay Ginebra did it in the 2009-10 Philippine Cup quarterfinals against TNT.
San Miguel had its final stand at 103-94 on a basket by Fajardo, before Santos, coming in after Jones committed a flagrant foul penalty one, hit back-to-back three pointers to stretch the lead to 14 and virtually seal the outcome of the match.
“Wala na yung stats, wala na yung mga (previous games). Everything is out of the window. It’s just one game,” added Franco of Sunday’s do-or-die encounter.
EJ Anosike had 35 points and 11 rebounds, while Fajardo added 17 and 20 rebounds for the Beermen, whose woes were compounded when CJ Perez was called for his fifth personal foul with 4:38 left in the third period.
Perez finished with 11 points but was held scoreless in the second half.
The scores:
Converge (114) - Winston 26, Arana 25, Jones 22, Stockton 16, Caralipio 10, Santos 9, Cabagnot 5, Ambohot 1, Delos Santos 0, Nieto 0, Andrade 0.
San Miguel (100) - Anosike 35, Fajardo 17, Lassiter 15, Perez 11, Cruz 10, Romeo 5, Trollano 4, Rosales 2, Tautuaa 1, Ross 0, Enciso 0, Brondial 0, Manuel 0.
Quarterscores: 31-29; 51-55; 88-79; 114-100.
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