Ragland riddle unsolved as Peristeri take defending champs to Game 3

MIES (Switzerland) - Game 1 made it look like Telekom Baskets Bonn had an answer for Joe Ragland, but the Peristeri bwin point guard made all the difference in Game 2 on Wednesday and the Greek side extended the Quarter-Finals series to the deciding third game in Germany next week.

It was one-way traffic in Game 2 and Peristeri picked up a 90-62 win, making Bonn's path to another Basketball Champions League Final Four more difficult than the title holders had hoped.

 
Turning point: The opening tip. Bonn allowed an easy alley-oop on the first play of the game, which was just an invitation to Ragland to dissect their defense completely and make the game an easy one for the loud Peristeri fans in the building.

Coach Vassilis Spanoulis saw his team create a double-digit lead in the first half, and by the end of the third period it was only a matter of how big the gap would be in the end. The  final score turned out to be Peristeri's largest lead of the night.

 
Game hero: He fell just one assist short of his 17th career double-double in the BCL, but Ragland does not care about those numbers. He would probably say he doesn't even care about getting his 51st 10-point career game in the BCL, counting to a game-high 21 points in just 22 minutes on the court, as long as he got the win.

At 34 years of age, Ragland is playing elite basketball and is making his case to be the MVP of the season for the first time in his career.

Stats don't lie: Pick your poison. Peristeri dominated every part of the boxscore, the biggest gap being in points in the paint (50-32) which speaks volumes of how effective Ragland's 9 assists were on the day.

Bottom line: Bonn will need a packed Telekom Dome in the third game of the series next week, and they will definitely need better shooting too, because 3-of-15 from beyond the arc won't get the job done, anywhere, ever.

Glynn Watson and Till Pape were the two best players for coach Roel Moors in this one, but both of them came off the bench, meaning there's a lot of room for improvement from the starters.

 
Next to Ragland's 21 points and 9 assists, Peristeri also got 17 points apiece from Trevor Thompson and Elijah Mitrou-Long, while Jermaine Love needed just 18 minutes off the bench to score 15 points.

Game 3 is set to be a memorable one. It's either going to be the defending champions Bonn reaching back-to-back Final Four events, or a famous first for coach Spanoulis and Peristeri.

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