STANLEY Pringle allayed fears that he suffered an injury in Globalport’s 108-80 rout of NLEX in the PBA Governors’ Cup on Friday night.
The Batang Pier’s rookie sensation limped around the court fora while in the first half. Although he saw action briefly in the third quarter, he never returned in the payoff period.
That brought the speculation that Pringle might have aggravated a sprained right ankle that forced him to miss the first few games of the conference.
But the Rookie of the Year candidate stressed it was nothing serious, blaming it for a lack of stretching before the game — ironically because he overstretched last time.
“It was a stretch issue. I wasn't able to stretch,” Pringle said. “When I came out, I had something like a groin strain from stretching too much the other day. It's all that was.”
The minor injury forced him to play just 15 minutes and give extended action to the bench players, particularly John Pinto and Prince Caperal, among others.
The relievers more than made up for his absence.
“It's good to see the second unit come in and get some burn, get some running,” said Pringle, who still registered nine points on 3-of-4 shooting, along with four rebounds, two assists, and one steal off the bench.
More importantly, the Batang Pier snapped a two-game skid and improved to a 5-4 win-loss record.
“We corrected some of our team mistakes like our defensive rotation,” Pringle said.
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