Pringle big for Ginebra in key Game 5 win over Bay Area

Stanley Pringle jumped for joy as he and teammate Jared Dillinger returned to the locker room after Barangay Ginebra advanced with a win from completing another championship run.

For Pringle, it was more than just the 101-91 victory over the Bay Area Dragons to take a 3-2 lead in the PBA Commissioner’s Cup title series that pleased him the most. It was in the way he contributed – two big triples in the last two minutes that helped seal the deal in front of 21,823 fans at the Mall of Asia Arena on Saturday night.

“It feels good to play again at this stage,” Pringle said after finishing with 20 points built on six threes. “That’s all I want to be here: To be on this stage and play again.”

Pringle’s performance comes nine months after he was forced to watch Ginebra’s 2022 Governors Cup title on the sidelines due to a torn meniscus in his left knee.

And Pringle seemed sentimental after the long road back to being a pivotal player that put the Gin Kings on the cusp of lifting another championship trophy, with the first of two possible clinchers coming in Game 6 on Wednesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

“This is the third operation on this knee,” he continued. “At first, I didn’t think we could get to this point, but everything is good at the moment,” he said.

From the bench

He has played a lesser role since returning as coach Tim Cone says the 35-year-old is still far from full strength.

But Cone would rather take it than anything else, given what he has done in the game that put the Gin Kings on the verge of the seventh championship under the tutelage of the PBA’s winningest coach.

“He’s still working again,” Cone said. “But 90 percent of them are better than most guys in the league.

“He’s a natural starter, but we’re trying to bring him off the bench to watch the minutes. But that adds depth to our team, to be able to bring a guy like Stanley out there and to relieve LA. [Tenorio] or Scottie [Thompson]. And we can meet them in big moments like today.

Çone continued that Pringle, whose minutes increased after “Iron Man” and Ginebra leader Tenorio suffered a groin injury, felt like an ace in the hole.

“He is definitely a weapon out there that the Bay Area has not seen because he has not played heavy, heavy minutes,” Cone. “And they don’t understand Stanley’s history a year or two ago in terms of how dynamic it is.

“So he’s almost like a little secret weapon for us against the Bay Area,” Cone added.

Dragons coach Brian Goorjian acknowledged that after Pringle’s first three came as Bay Area cut an 18-point deficit to 91-86.

Call the coach

The Dragons, who missed import Andrew Nicholson once again and top playmaker Glen Yang to injury, chose to double Justin Brownlee, who had 37 points after making 14-of-22 attempts, with Hayden Blankley and Scotty Ewing at the top of the key.

Brownlee decided to show the ball to Thompson open on the left wing, but the latter went for an extra pass to Pringle for a corner triple that restored order to Kings Gin and shook off any tension felt by supporters.

“We didn’t want Brownlee to beat us. He had 37 points, so we doubled him,” Goorjian said before referring to the famous game-winning play that gave the Chicago Bulls the 1997 NBA championship.

“It’s like Michael Jordan. If someone else wants to beat you, make it Steve Kerr,” he said. “It’s my phone.” INQ

Read Next

For suggestions, complaints, or questions, please contact us.