The stage was set for a good old fashioned sweep. Maccabi Tel Aviv couldn’t have set it up any better, that’s for sure. Sold out home game at Yad Eliyahu, 2-0 finals series lead over their arch-rival Hapoel Tel Aviv, fans hanging from the rafters as excitement filled the air.

The reds had won the season series over the yellow-and-blue and also had a more successful Euroleague campaign, having finished in 6th place and featured in the quarterfinals against eventual finalist Real Madrid. However, Maccabi had captured the Israel State Cup and despite coming into the series with a very short roster due to injuries, seemed to have the upper handover a Hapoel team that was missing their big guns, Elijah Bryant, Antonio Blakeney, Dan Oturu, Colin Malcolm and others who had helped them all year long.

But, that was all before Vasilije Micic and Co. rained on Maccabi’s parade.

With Keandre Cook in and Chris Jones out, a revitalized Ish Wainright and Tai Odiase, Dimitrios Itoudis went with a lot of brawn in what was a rock’em, sock’em game that frustrated Oded Katash’s team as the visitors chalked up a 80-74 victory to cut the championship series lead to 2-1.

Hapoel came out strong and kept Maccabi at bay from the get go. The key was holding the hosts down and keeping them under the 80 point mark, knowing that this would probably be enough to record the victory and so it was.

But it wasn’t just the defense that stunted and suffocated Maccabi time and time again as the yellow-and-blue had way too many shot click violations, poorly executed plays and one bad shot after the next.

It was the star of stars in Vasilije Micic who couldn’t miss as he out his mark all of the stat sheet to the tune of 29 points going 7/12 from beyond the 3-point arc to go along with 10 assists as the former Euroleague MVP turned back the clock to give one of the great performances in the history of the Israeli league finals.

Perhaps, of Micic’s triples there were none bigger than the pair he drained with under five minutes to go and Maccabi ahead 69-68 and the momentum going one way, to the yellow-and-blue to give the Reds a 74-69 lead as they notched the win.

Micic ruled the roost and rained heavily on the Maccabi parade in that final frame, with not only making those clutch shots but dishing out some monstrous and thundering assists to big man Tai Odiase while also recording a couple of timely steals as well. Watching Micic was like observing Picasso in front of the canvas.

An artist at work.

Now, Micic has got to do it once again, this time in front of the home crowd. One win was nice, but Hapoel needs to win two more, three in a row against Maccabi in order to take their first championship title in over 50 years. They saw the New York Knicks do it and there is no reason to think that the reds can’t do the same.

But in order to make history, Hapoel will need to hold Roman Sorkin at bay again as the Maccabi big man put up a big fat goose egg on the scoresheet while only grabbing a trio of rebounds as teammate Will Rayman also went 0/2 and was ineffective after having been subbed out early on due to a minor hand injury. Katash’s crew can’t win if two of their eight players don’t score and the Reds can’t rely on that again as well.

Ish Wainright was a totally different player than in the first two games of the series and was a man possessed in game three, doing everything that he could in order to help his side stay alive. He talked about how they believed that they could do it and how they believe that game three was going to be theirs.

Perhaps it was the sunglasses and wired headphones that many of the players sported either coming into the arena like Keandre Cook or Dan Oturu in the lockerroom. Cook didn’t want to talk about it when asked at the postgame press conference, but those in the know are fully aware that the Reds took a page out of Lebron James’s book.

When The King’s Cleveland Cavaliers fell into a 3-1 deficit against the Golden State Warriors, James willed his squad to the title and became the first ever team to win an NBA Championship after being down 3-1.

In fact, there is a famous meme of James with the shades and the earphones.

That’s exactly who Hapoel Tel Aviv wants to be. They want to make history and become the first Israeli league team to come back from a 0-2 deficit.

Can they do it is an entirely other question. Will they try?

There’s no question about that.

Welcome to the series Hapoel Tel Aviv.