Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has been Mr. Everything for TNT, spearheading the team's near perfect run from the elims and through the semifinals, and was at it again in their championship series-leveling 95-82 triumph Wednesday.
And he's a huge source of inspiration as the Tropang Giga try to grab the driver's seat versus the Barangay Ginebra Kings in Game 3 of the PBA Governors' Cup best-of-seven title showdown Friday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Game time is at 5:45 p.m.
Jefferson has been more than holding his own against Justin Brownlee, and he served as a glue keeping TNT intact as they avenged their 102-90 defeat in the series kickoff.
"Rondae, he's given it his everything. But I know that he still has a lot left in his tank. This is a long series, Rondae. So he was saying, 'man, I'm tired in practice' but I said this is going to be a long series. So hats off to the guys for committing in the things that we did (Wednesday)," said TNT coach Jojo Lastimosa.
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"The team refused to lose. We didn't want to be behind 0-2," Lastimosa added.
Successful in their bounceback bid in Game 2, the Tropa will try to roll on and grab the 2-1 upperhand in the race-to-four series.
And expect Jefferson and his teammates to continue to be aggressive and assertive which was a key factor in their wire-to-wire triumph Wednesday.
"The guys just decided at practice that 'hey, we're not gonna take this lightly and we need to be doing the first punches and not be reactive to what they do,'" said Lastimosa.
And the burden of adjustment is now naturally on the other side.
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"They flipped the switch on us and they did everything they wanted to do and we didn't get anything done. So now it's 1-1 and we'll see what happens in Game 3," said Ginebra coach Tim Cone.
"We got to play with a little more discipline and a little more fire than we did (last time). It was actually disappointing but it's a series and it's not one game so we got to move on to the next one at this point."
Brownlee is moving on from his mere 12-point outing the last time.
"I feel like I kinda let my team down as the import. I had good moments in other areas (10 rebounds, eight assists) but 3-of-16, I got to be better in that field," he said.
"We're going to look at the video and try to figure out how to get Justin open and we'll go from there. But we're not worried about Justin at all. He's had tough nights before and he's always responded really well," said Cone. (SB)
