Barangay Ginebra regained the upper hand after beating San Miguel Beer, 100-90, in Game 3 of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Philippine Cup semifinals series Sunday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Rookie RJ Abarrientos woke up from a scoring stupor, firing 24 points to lead four other Kings in double figures as the squad took a 2-1 series advantage.

The third overall pick in the last Draft pumped in 18 of his point production in the fourth quarter and shot 9-of-19 from the field. He added nine rebounds and eight assists for a near triple-double to make up for a subpar performance in the first two games, where he scored a combined nine points.

Ginebra displayed its vaunted defense to hold the Beermen below 100 points for the second time in the series, something that was missing in the Kings’ 17-point blowout loss in Game 2 last Friday.

“We didn’t play a good game the last time out. We have to tip our hats to San Miguel because they were sticking from the Game 1 loss and they knew that June Mar (Fajardo) is gonna play limited minutes so their guys came out and play with tremendous energy. Basically, they outplayed us in Game 2,” Kings coach Tim Cone said.

“I’m just proud of the guys for steadying themselves. We figured a couple of things out. We played with a really good tempo and RJ just played tremendously down the stretch to keep them at bay,” Cone added.

Jamie Malonzo scored 20 points, Japeth Aguilar had 18 markers while Scottie Thompson and Stephen Holt added 16 and 10 points, respectively, for Ginebra, which will try to draw closer to a third straight finals appearance in Game 4 on Wednesday.  

The Kings turned the tables around in the second half after trailing by four at halftime by clamping down on defense and limiting the Beermen to just 14 points in the third.

Abarrientos kept Ginebra at a safe distance with timely baskets to quell the uprising attempts of San Miguel.

Don Trollano had 22 points, Fajardo submitted a double-double of 12 points and 14 boards while Jericho Cruz and CJ Perez got 11 markers each for the Beermen.

The scores:

GINEBRA (100) --- Abarrientos 24, Malonzo 20, J.Aguilar 18, Thompson 16, Holt 10, Ahanmisi 7, Rosario 5, Pinto 0, R. Aguilar 0, Gray 0

SAN MIGUEL (90) --- Trollano 22, Fajardo 12, Cruz 11, Perez 11, Tiongson 10, Ross 6, Tuatuaa 6, Lassiter 5, Rosales 3, Brondial 2, Cahilig 0

Quarters: 23-20, 46-50, 71-64, 100-90.