ANTIPOLO – The offense obviously clicked for Converge, but the defense was left wanting.
Head coach Delta Pineda lamented the FiberXers played below-par defense against a potent scoring machine like San Miguel, leading to their first loss in the PBA Governors’ Cup, 128-122, on Wednesday night.
READ George King, Cjay Perez preside over San Miguel rout of Converge
While he did laud the effort of the team on the offensive end, Pineda said needs to do more to keep the Beermen at bay as import George King and CJ Perez combined for more than half of San Miguel’s total output.
King erupted for 41 points on a combined 4-of-14 shooting from the three-point and four-point range, while Perez added 31 behind a 5-of-6 clip from both distances.
“Kulang pa rin (effort) sa defense,” said Pineda afterwards. “Lesson learned. Even if we scored more than a hundred [points], pero papa-iskorin din natin yung kalaban sa ganung paraan. So we need to really focus on defense.”
The offense was not a problem for Converge, which had a total of 36 assists led by the seven each of Alec Stockton and Calvin Abueva, while only committing a total of 11 turnovers.
In contrast, San Miguel had 25 boards and 17 turnovers, from which Converge scored 30 points.
“Yung offense nandun na, yung chemistry nandun na rin. It means nagsi-share na kami (ng bola),” said Pineda.
The FiberXers fell to 3-1 [win-loss] in Group A to yield the top spot to San Miguel (3-0) and idle NLEX (3-0). They play defending champion TNT next, with the Tropang 5G still smarting from a 103-87 upset at the hands of Titan Ultra.
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