Macau and Titan supplied 85% of NLEX's scoring margin

NLEX finished the 2026 PBA Governors' Cup elimination round 9-3 with a scoring margin of +16.3 points a game, the best in the league. Of its total margin of 196 points over 12 games, 166 came from four games against Macau and Titan Ultra. In its other eight games, against four clubs, NLEX was 5-3 and +3.8 a game.

Group A had a feature that Group B did not. Macau and Titan finished 2-10 each, at -26.3 and -22.0 a game, and every other Group A club played them four times. This piece takes those games out and looks at what is left.

The figures come from the published elimination-round results for all 13 clubs: 72 games, 42 in Group A and 30 in Group B. Each game is recorded under both clubs with the same score, every pair within a group met twice, and our wins and losses match the standings for every club. A separate results list agrees with 67 of the 72 games and differs by a point on one more, San Miguel's win over Titan on August 12, which is 143-113 here and 144-113 in one report. We use 143. The other four games are not in that list. Using 144 would move San Miguel's margin by 0.1.

Take out the bottom two

Club	Record	Margin per game	Against Macau and Titan	Against the rest	Share of total margin from Macau and Titan
NLEX	9-3	+16.3	4-0, +41.5	5-3, +3.8	85%
San Miguel	9-3	+12.8	4-0, +33.5	5-3, +2.4	88%
Converge	8-4	+11.1	4-0, +35.8	4-4, -1.3	108%
TNT	7-5	+8.8	3-1, +19.0	4-4, +3.8	72%
Terrafirma	5-7	-0.8	3-1, +15.0	2-6, -8.6	not meaningful

Margins are points per game. The last column is the margin from games against Macau and Titan divided by the club's total margin. For Converge it is above 100% because the club was outscored by 10 points in total against everyone else.

Four wins over Macau and Titan were worth 143 points of margin to Converge, 134 to San Miguel and 166 to NLEX. Those margins come from playing the two weakest clubs in the league twice each.

Group A's games show the same effect at the league level. Of its 42 games, 14 were decided by 30 or more points. Of Group B's 30, two were. Group A's games averaged 226.3 combined points and Group B's 203.1.

What Group B looked like

Group B had no such clubs. Its worst record, Blackwater's 3-7, came with a margin of -2.2, and its margins ran from Magnolia's +6.8 to Phoenix's -4.5.

Magnolia was 7-3 and +6.8 over 10 games, all against the other five Group B clubs. Set beside the Group A figures against clubs other than Macau and Titan, that is the best margin in the league: NLEX and TNT are +3.8, San Miguel +2.4.

The comparison is rough. The fields are not identical, and eight to ten games per club is a small sample. It does show that the headline table ranks the Group A clubs ahead of Magnolia mainly because of Macau and Titan.

The quarterfinals so far

The top four in each group crossed over into best-of-five quarterfinals: first in Group A against fourth in Group B, second against third, third against second, and fourth against first. Through November 3 the results were:

Series	Result
NLEX (A1) v Phoenix (B4)	NLEX won 3-0
TNT (A4) v Magnolia (B1)	TNT won 3-0
San Miguel (A2) v Ginebra (B3)	Ginebra lead 2-1
Converge (A3) v Rain or Shine (B2)	Converge lead 2-1

Magnolia, with the best margin against comparable opposition, was swept by a club that finished 7-5. That is one series, and it does not say the adjusted margin was wrong. TNT's +3.8 against the other four was tied for the best in Group A.

What the numbers show, and what we read into them

The numbers show that most of the Group A margin came from Macau and Titan. Against the rest, NLEX, TNT and San Miguel were between +2.4 and +3.8, Converge was below zero, and Terrafirma was -8.6.

What it means is our reading. A club's margin against the rest of the league is a fairer test of strength than its margin against the two worst teams, and this piece does not claim the Group A clubs are weak. Their records are real. We do claim the gap between them and Group B is smaller than the standings suggest, and that four series do not settle which reading is better.

The same round also sent a 5-5 club through while better margins stayed home: see who qualified and who did not. The test is the semifinals, which pair the first and third quarterfinal winners and the second and fourth. NLEX will meet the winner of Converge and Rain or Shine, and TNT the winner of San Miguel and Ginebra. If NLEX and TNT, +3.8 against comparable opposition, beat those clubs comfortably, the unadjusted margins were closer to the truth. If they struggle, the adjustment was.