Barangay Ginebra faced the specter of a repeat of its sorry Dubai defeat but survived, salvaging a 129-124 win over the erstwhile unbeaten San Miguel Beer squad in the PBA Governors Cup at the Smart Araneta Coliseum Sunday.
Justin Brownlee, Japeth Aguilar, LA Tenorio and Stanley Pringle teamed up to save the day for the Kings who snapped a two-game skid and improved to 2-2.
The Kings nearly blew away a big 18-point spread but toughened up in the clutch to hand the Beermen their first loss, and thus leave the TNT KaTropa (6-0) as the lone unbeaten team in the season-ending tourney.
Brownlee, Aguilar, Tenorio and Pringle took turns in delivering the buckets as they held their ground in a fiery exchange at the finish, in the process dealing SMB a first loss in five starts.
The Ginebra import came through with back-to-back triple-double. But this one came with the precious win after back-to-back losses to Phoenix and NLEX.
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Brownlee piled up 28 points, 14 rebounds and the same number of assists while Stanley Pringle came up with 27 markers, six boards and the same number of dish-offs as the Kings somehow eased the pain of their Dubai loss to the Road Warriors.
Tenorio, Aguilar and Art dela Cruz were also productive, chipping in 19, 17 and 11 points, respectively.
With Marcio Lassiter back, Von Pessumal was back to playing limited minutes but he nonetheless made his presence felt with three straight treys that brought SMB back into the game at 108-111 with five minutes left to play.
The Beermen even came to within two twice at 111-113 and 113-115 but the Kings then regrouped, going to Brownlee, Pringle, Tenorio and Aguilar to preserve the win.
Brownlee executed a jam then set up Aguilar for a three-point play starting with his own slam as Ginebra restored control at 123-114.
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The Beermen had their last hurrah on eight unanswered points making it 122-125 with 28.5 ticks to go.
But then Arwind Santos was called for a technical foul on a delay of game infraction. Tenorio canned in the gift shot that all but sealed the Ginebra win, putting to naught Dez Wells' 52-point explosion. (SB)
