BACOLOD -- Calvin Oftana graced the 2024 PBA All-Star festivities presented by Arena Plus with a great display of long-distance shooting, blowing away Paul Lee's title repeat bid and marking his own rise as three-point champ at the University of St. La Salle Gym here Saturday.
Oftana barely made the championship round with 22 points in the elims but waxed hot with the title on the line, bombing away 25 to beat Lee (20) and Chris Newsome (15), and becoming the third TNT player to win the three-point shootout after Jimmy Alapag and Renren Ritualo.
The Gilas mainstay went on a roll in the medal play, surpassing Lee's leading score and clinching the crown just in the fourth rack.
By the final rack, Lee was already among those cheering Oftana on.
Oftana gamely obliged, draining the final money ball to cheers from everybody in the venue, hailing the triumph of the new king.
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Foiled was Lee's bid to become the fifth back-to-back champ after Jasper Ocampo, Boyet Fernandez, Mark Macapagal and Terrence Romeo.
Out after the elims were Ginebra's Maverick Ahanmisi (18), Blackwater's James Yap (17), Converge's Alec Stockton (18), NLEX' Robbie Herndon, NorthPort's Arvin Tolentino (19), Phoenix's Ken Tuffin (20), Rain or Shine's Andrei Caracut (17), San Miguel's Marcio Lassiter (17) and Terrafirma's Javi Gomez-De Liano (19).
Newsome frolicked with 28 in the first round as against Lee's 26 and Oftana's 22.
But Oftana was the man of the moment in the finale.
Oftana's winning ways continued. He's champ at San Beda in the NCAA, with TNT in the PBA and with Gilas in the last Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.(SB)
