TNT clinched a semifinal berth in the PBA 49th Season Governors’ Cup via lopsided 125-96 win over NLEX on Tuesday at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
The Tropang Giga cruised to the win and a 3-1 victory in the best-of-five quarterfinals, and will face either Rain or Shine and Magnolia in the next phase.
Magnolia tied that series, 2-2, after a 129-100 victory over the Elasto Painters. A do-or-die Game Five will be played on Saturday.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson finished with 35 points and 11 rebounds in the series-clincher for TNT, which also got an excellent shooting performance from Rey Nambatac.
Nambatac had 19 points and shot 7-of-12 from the field. He scored 13 points in the first half alone to help TNT grab a commanding 66-46 halftime lead.
Robert Bolick and DeQuan Jones had 25 and 21 points respectively for NLEX, but TNT’s firepower was just too much to overcome as they shot 57.5 percent from the field.
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“In sports, it’s about playing defense certainly but it’s really about putting the ball into the hoop. And I think in the quarterfinals, we finally hit our shots,” said TNT coach Chot Reyes.
“If you noticed, our field goal percentages in the elimination round, we are very low on all fronts, on two points, three points, everything. But we took a good hard look at film and we gauge the quality of our misses.
"I believe not all misses are created equally. We had good misses. We had good shots. We were just not hitting it. We stuck to it and all of our discussion in the quarterfinals is to take good shots,” said Reyes.
Roger Pogoy tallied 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field, while Calvin Oftana had 11 points and 10 rebounds for TNT.
The scores:
TNT 125 – Hollis-Jefferson 35, Nambatac 19, Pogoy 18, Oftana 11, Khobuntin 11, Erram 10, Williams 5, Aurin 5, Exciminiano 4, Payawal 3, Heruela 2, Castro 2, Ebona 0, Galinato 0, Varilla 0.
NLEX 96 – Bolick 25, Jones 21, Policarpio 12, Nermal 10, Torres 9, Anthony 5, Valdez 4, Semerad 3, Nieto 2, Fajardo 2, Herndon 2, Mocon 1, Miranda 0, Amer 0, Rodger 0.
Quarters: 35-25; 66-46; 95-74; 125-96.
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