Rondae Hollis-Jefferson was so gassed out that he couldn’t even get to celebrate with his teammates who were trying to hug him at the end of the final buzzer.

Prior to the contest, he vowed to bring everything he got in the first Game 7 of his career.

“Whatever it takes,” he said.

And it took everything, not only from him, but also from the rest of the TNT Tropang Giga just to survive the Barangay Ginebra Kings, 87-83, in the exhilarating overtime win on Friday, March 28, at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Hollis-Jefferson, playing in an almost no relief effort and limping on one leg, just typified the grit and determination the wards of head coach Chot Reyes had to display to win what everyone deemed to be their hardest championship run in the three meetings against Ginebra in the Finals.

“Just with pure guts. There's no other way,” said Reyes as TNT overcame the Justin Brownlee magic after Ginebra was looking ready to take over in the extra period after its resident import’s game-tying, morale-boosting trey at the end of the regulation.

On top of that, there were also huge concerns on TNT’s fitness heading into overtime with Hollis-Jefferson limping at the end and RR Pogoy and Rey Nambatac also suffering from cramps.

“I said at this point, there's no more strategy. It's just about grit and determination, just about making stops and making the extra effort to create that stop,” added Reyes as TNT and Ginebra needed extra five minutes after the Brownlee trey knotted the count at 79-all.

Somehow, TNT found an extra fight within them and pulled off two big defensive stops on Brownlee to fuel their overtime run.

“In the huddle in between the fourth quarter and the overtime, I said, hey, we're okay. We're okay. It's a tight ballgame. We're still in this game. I said, don't lose heart. We're right in this ballgame,” recalled Reyes.

“Let's just scratch and claw. So that's the only way we were able to survive. Even with Roger out with his cramps, Rey was cramping up and Rondae had nothing left,” he added.

Good thing for TNT though, it got timely contributions from Glen Khobuntin who buried a booming triple from the left corner that gave his team an 85-79 lead and seemingly took the wind out of Ginebra’s sails with 2:22 left in overtime.

“Glenn played a hell of a game. What a game for Glenn to really show up.”