Fajardo 'way better' than 'soft' Slaughter, says Rain or Shine import

photo by KC CRUZ, GMA News

Rain or Shine's import Pierre Henderson-Niles was looking forward to his match-up with San Miguel Beer center June Mar Fajardo ahead of their Game One clash in the PBA Commissioner's Cup semifinals on Sunday.

The burly 6-foot-8 big man shut down Barangay Ginebra's 7-foot behemoth Greg Slaughter in the quarterfinals. He later said he wanted to see how "The Kraken" compares to "Greg-zilla".

After Fajardo finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds in 37 minutes against him, Henderson-Niles saw why Fajardo is the league's reigning Most Valuable Player.

"He's way better [than Slaughter]. He's not soft," he said about Fajardo.

Slaughter is sitting atop of the Best Player of the Conference with 34.2 statistical points after the quarterfinals, while Fajardo is tied with Carlo Lastimosa for fifth with 28.55 SPs.

The 6-foot-10 slotman, however, showed his MVP form in the semifinals after getting slowed down by injuries in the elimination round and shot an efficient 11-of-19 clip from the field while forcing Henderson-Niles into foul trouble.

"I got in foul trouble, kinda hard for me to play straight up so I guess that was their game plan, getting me in foul trouble," he said. "They did and it worked. Second half I got back in the game and just tried to redeem myself."

Henderson-Niles scored nine of his 13 points in the fourth quarter, earning praise from head coach Yeng Guiao for his performance.

"He gave us big baskets in the stretch. I guess it's not the number of points that you produce, it's when you produce those points," said the fiery coach.

Rain or Shine took Game One with a 98-94 victory thanks to his clutch buckets, but the Beermen will be looking to bounce back on Game Two on Tuesday. — APG, GMA News