IT shows how Greg Slaughter badly missed playing in the PBA.
In his first game back after almost two years, the 7-foot center came up with 23 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in his first outing in a NorthPort uniform on Sunday in the Philippine Cup.
While the monster numbers which Slaughter churned out in 37 minutes of play didn’t translate into victory for the Batang Pier, who lost a close 88-86 contest against the San Miguel Beermen, just being on the court and playing again gave the Fil-Am big man huge satisfaction.
“Absolutely, it’s been almost two years since I played. I missed it, there’s just so much fun for me,” said Slaughter, who last played in the league on January 17, 2020 when Barangay Ginebra clinched the Governors Cup championship in Game Five of the PBA Finals against Meralco.
Acquired by NorthPort in a trade with Ginebra for Christian Standhardinger, Slaughter sat out the Batang Pier’s first two outings in the new season, before finally suiting up against a team that won the all-Filipino conference five times the last six seasons.
It was a tough debut for Slaughter, but the center out of Ateneo obviously passed the test with flying colors.
“What more can you ask for?’ he stressed about playing his first game back in a long while against the talented Beermen. “They still got their five-peat champion team intact, but I’m proud at how a lot of our young guys played today.”
Greg Slaughter and the Batang Pier give June Mar Fajardo and the Beermen a scare
The Batang Pier fell to a 1-2 record, but the 33-year-old Slaughter sees a lot of upsides to the team with the way it battled the Beermen entering the stretch after coming back from a 16-point deficit.
“We’re a young team, and coming off a one-time conference last year, I’m very proud of how we came out tonight,” he stressed.
“We got off to a little slow start trying to get adjusted to each other, but I’m very confident in this team moving forward.”
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