Four imports produced no lower than 43 points during the double-header of the Philippine Basketball Association last Wednesday.
NLEX import Wayne Selden scored 43 points in his first game in Asia’s pioneering professional league.
He caught fire in the third period, hitting 20 of his total output before Barangay Ginebra San Miguel slowed him down in the fourth that led to the Road Warriors’ tough 114-111 loss.
In that game, three-time Best Import awardee Justin Brownlee also waxed hot as he dropped 44 points.
The other two reinforcements displayed their scoring prowess on the ame night — TNT Tropang Giga’s Jalen Hudson and Converge’s Jamaal Franklin.
Hudson hit 56 points, including six three-pointers to match the franchise record tallied by Jeron Ward in the 2001 Commissioner’s Cup.
Franklin’s record wasn’t bad at all as he scored 47 points for the FiberXers, who lost only for the first time this conference.
A day later, two more imports took centerstage.
Troy Williams, a National Basketball League veteran who came in as a replacement for Shawn Glover, ended up with 55 points but it wasn’t enough to carry Blackwater to victory.
The Bossing suffered a 106-119 setback at the hands of Terrafirma, which was powered by the red-hot Jordan Williams who erupted for 57 markers.
It’s not ordinary to see players scoring 50 points or more on the same day. In fact, seeing high scoring imports brings back the times when Billy Ray Bates, Norman Black, Larry McNeil, Lew Massey, Michael Young, Carlos Briggs and Tony Harris were lighting up the scoreboard.
But those high scores cannot only be seen on individual stats as even teams had become more productive offensively.
Ginebra, for example, didn’t show signs of slowing down as it put aside its championship hangover by quickly resuming its title-retention drive.
In their first three games, the Kings didn’t score lower than 114 and won all of them against Rain or Shine, NLEX and NorthPort.
How about Converge?
Converge is an up and coming team that owns the tournament’s most potent firepower as it scored no lower than 111 points in its first five matches.
With that, the FiberXers averaged a tournament-best of 119.4 points per game, including a 130-point explosion that prompted Aldin Ayo to gain a lot of attention in just his second conference as PBA coach.
Aside from Ayo, two new coaches are also making waves for their respective teams — Jojo Lastimosa of TNT and Frankie Lim of NLEX.
Under Lim, the Road Warriors have been producing 112.8 points per game while Lastimosa’s Tropang Giga have been scoring 111.4 in five games.
San Miguel, the tournament leader and unbeaten in five games, has been averaging 107 points per game, but it has eight players averaging more than six points per game.
High scores have become the norm this conference, which means that the game has become a lot more entertaining for fans and with imports scoring 50 or more, it appears these players are just starting to warm up.