Stanley Pringle came through with a vintage performance to help Ginebra ward off a depleted yet pesky Bay Area, 101-91, to move on the verge of regaining the PBA Commissioner’s Cup title, Sunday night at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.
The PBA Bubble BPC fired 20 points on six three-pointers off the bench, the last two of which he nailed in back-to-back fashion to re-establish the Barangay’s control of the match after seeing the Dragons come to within five from 18 points down.
Pringle stepping up in the final period couldn’t be any bigger for a Kings’ side that lost LA Tenorio to a groin injury just seconds into the third canto.
Champions of the 2018 edition, the crowd darlings have a shot of closing the series out on Game Six on Wednesday at the SMART Araneta Coliseum.
“Well, he’s not 100-percent yet, as everyone can tell. He’s still working his way back, but his 90-percent is better than most guys in the league,” said head coach Tim Cone of Pringle, who’s yet to fully recover from a knee injury.
“He’s definitely a weapon out there, and he’s a weapon that really, Bay Area has not seen, really. Because he hasn’t been playing heavy, heavy minutes, and they don’t know the history of Stanley a year ago or two years ago or three years ago.”
Justin Brownlee led Ginebra with 37 points and eight rebounds, together with two assists, three steals, and four blocks as he set the tone on defense early that enabled his side to race to a hot 16-4 start into the match.
Japeth Aguilar contributed 12 points, six rebounds, and six blocks in an outing highlighted by his poster jam as he helped out Scottie Thompson in applying the killer blows that put Bay Area to sleep once and for all.
The reigning MVP was limited to just seven points after being hounded by foul trouble with four, but came through with one of the important buckets in the final minute — a lay-up off a wild coast-to-coast sequence to make it a 99-88 lead.
“It’s a tough group, it really is. They’re really well-coached and disciplined. When we get leads, they don’t panic, and that’s been the hard part for us. They don’t panic when we get leads. We had to keep earning it and earning it,” Cone said.
Ginebra took down a Dragons crew that missed lead guard Glen Yang to an ankle injury, indeed bad news for a team already without Andrew Nicholson.
The two, however, could return to action in the all-important Game Six, where the guest team tries to send the best-of-seven series to a rubber match.
“We expect Nicholson to play. We didn’t expect him to play tonight, I have to admit. We had the feeling he wasn’t gonna play. We didn’t know for sure, but we didn’t plan for that, him playing tonight. We will plan for him,” Cone said.
Hayden Blankley led Bay Area with 29 points, powering the rally that saw him chop the gap to 86-91 via free throws with 2:18 left.
Lam supplied 16 points, Zheng Qilong made 15, while Liu Chuanxing added 10 markers and 11 boards in the comeback that fell short.
The Scores:
Ginebra 101 – Brownlee 37, Pringle 20, J.Aguilar 12, Tenorio 8, Malonzo 7, Thompson 7, Standhardinger 5, Pinto 3, Gray 2, Mariano 0.
Bay Area 91 – Blankley 29, Lam 16, Zheng 15, Liu 10, Ewing 9, Song 5, Reid 2, Ju 2.
Quarterscores: 23-24, 54-43, 76-62, 101-91.
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The second game of each PBA gameday is live-streamed on SMART Sports.
