I'd like to begin my second blog by congratulating the two teams that have already qualified for the Final Four – Tau Ceramica and Panathinaikos. We played both these teams during the season and I can say that both teams are worthy of their spot in the Final Four. Now our goal here is to join them. The Passover holiday is over and with it so is the difficulty of not eating unleavened bread for a week. The week-long holiday was not easy for me diet-wise, but we made it through that, too. I wrote my first blog before our first game in Moscow – and a lot has happened since then. The first was a pretty humiliating defeat at the hands of CSKA in that first game and the second was one of the biggest wins for Maccabi in recent years. We started the first game poorly and from that point we chased after CSKA, which was pretty frustrating. CSKA was everyone's favorite going in and then the game stared with Andersen's three-point shooting in the first quarter, was followed by Papaloukas's brilliant game-management and ended with Van den Spiegel's dunk show.

Looking back, that defeat was a good thing. We felt disgraced and therefore I think we came out as hungry for the second game as we did – like a team of tigers supported by a den of lions. Together we took down CSKA in the way that we did – a 22-point... more

I want to start off by taking this opportunity to wish all my friends, family and, of course, Maccabi fans happy holidays for this Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom. It's a little tough for me that on a night when the whole family gets together to celebrate and eat the festive meal, I won't be there. But if I have to celebrate from overseas, at least it's for a good cause: Basketball.

Like always, things are fun and interesting around here. That's the life of a pro basketball player. It started as an afternoon activity and turned into a full-time career. On Tuesday, we begin our Quarterfinal Playoffs series against CSKA Moscow, which as everyone knows is one of the best teams in Europe. CSKA's results this season prove that it is a dominant and well-organized team, with a wonderful coach and great players. Some say that Maccabi comes to this series as an underdog, but for me that's a hard word to say. Hey, we're Maccabi Tel Aviv. And that says a lot not only in Israel, but also in Europe. Okay, CSKA may have the homecourt advantage and that may be very meaningful – because they have not lost at home this season in the Euroleague – but I know that we are a much better and higher-quality team than we've shown so far. We have great players, a fine coaching staff and a team manager with the biggest heart, Moni Fanan, who helps us with everything, whether it be in our professional or private lives. I really hope that everything comes together for us at such a crucial time in the season and that we can upgrade our ability before facing CSKA.

I played for three years for an Israeli club called Hapoel Galil Elyon – a distance of... more