“I don’t know what the other teams did (i.e. during the strike)”, said coach Neven Spahija before the first playoff game versus Ness Ziona. “We practiced and we prepared a schedule for such a week (i.e. with no games), but I think that lately we play a little bit different and find the chemistry, I don’t think it’s the strike that’s helping us, lately we’re playing better than we did at the beginning of the third round. Yesterday we bounced up and down we had some inconsistencies, but we controlled most of the game and every time they came back we knew how to respond and I like the good action we had on the defensive end”.

“It’s a little bit of everything”, coach Spahija replied when asked about the team’s improvement. “you know how much I complained about the differences in the EuroLeague and the domestic league in terms of continuation, I think that the continuation in the roster for just one team (i.e. not playing with different line ups between both leagues) is very important and it doesn’t matter in what level, to tell you 100% what was the reason?, I don’t know, every game is a new story especially now in the playoffs we have to be focus and ready and try to continue”. 

“The playoffs are not dependent on us”, coach summarized. “Ness Ziona have outstanding talent, but we have to do somethings better and not come to the situation like we had in previous games. It’s not about the rotation, when you approach this game, they scored on us and when I called for a timeout we didn’t make fouls and they scored, we have to be tough and play defense like this team can play. I think that whatever you are saying to the players and whatever you are doing they understand the situation and they know that this is the money time and they will play with all of their talent on both ends of the court”. 

“I wouldn’t say only good, but we were able to stay in the gym continue to work hard and get better and build chemistry”, said DeAndre Kane about the strike in the domestic league. “We came out yesterday with a lot of energy for the first time in a long time we actually started the game well instead of trying to catch up to another team but I got to say that coach did a great job this week just preparing us mentally even if the season was over we were still working in case it wasn’t over, and that was the case so we were able to come out strong and try to put an early imprint on the game yesterday”. 

“You want to bring that killer mentality every game”, Kane added about the mentality that needs to be brought during the playoffs. “Every time you step on the court you got to have that with you, for us we just want to stay consistent we won four games in a row and our goal is the next game so we’re looking forward to the fifth game against Ness Ziona who are a really good team that played us well two times here at our own home court, so we got to come out tomorrow with a lot of energy a lot of focus and just with the urgency that we really want to win a game and that’s what we focus on tomorrow”.

“You can’t say that”, said Kane about whether it’ll be an easy sweep. “There are a lot of teams around here in this country with a lot of talent, a lot different guys that can do a lot of different things and Ness Ziona is no different than that, they are the eighth seed but they have a lot of talent, they could have easily be the four five third or even second seed, so for us we don’t look at our opponents like that we come we work and we prepare, our coaches do a great job of preparing us and getting us ready for our next opponent and that’s our next opponent so Ness Ziona they came and they beat us here and they almost had the game the second time so for us we need to come with a lot of focus a lot of energy and try to impose our will early”, Kane summarized.  

Spahija’s squad are entering the post season in great form (last year Maccabi ended the regular season with a five game losing streak under a different coach). Since the 2010/11 season Maccabi swept six out of their seven playoff opponents.