Panathinaikos vs Bartzokas: A clash for all seasons

By Eurohoops team/info@eurohoops.net

Georgios Bartzokas… returns to the Olympic Sports Center in Athens for another encounter against Panathinaikos, this time with Khimki (14/11, 21:15) for Round 7 of the EuroLeague, stirring up memories of dozens of clashes!

More or less, this clash will be number 41 between the Greens and Bartzokas, and those date back more than a decade.

The Maroussi coach came face to face with Panathinaikos throughout his professional and coaching career.

At first with Olympia Larissa, Maroussi and Panionios and then of course on Olympiacos’s bench, while in recent years he’s been doing so with foreign teams for the EuroLeague.

Panathinaikos at home, Bartzokas… away

In a total of 40 games in all competitions, Panathinaikos count 29 wins, while Bartzokas counts 11. However, the former coach of Olympiacos, has the upper hand in the EuroLeague, as Khimki will be the fifth team with which he will go up against the Greens and with the last four (Olympiacos, Maroussi, Lokomotiv Kuban and Barcelona) he has a 6-4 record in his favor!

In fact, the greatest of those victories came in 2010, when he was on the bench of Maroussi and had beat Panathinaikos 80-78 inside the Olympic Sports Center in Athens (essentially a home court for Maroussi since they used this arena in the EuroLeague) for the Top 16, causing incredible turmoil in the Greens.

Besides, Dimitrios Giannakopoulos’ barging in the locker room after that game has stayed in people’s memory, as has the reaction of the fans, who gathered en masse the next day at the Olympic Sports Center to support Zeljko Obradovic and his players.

Aside from that, it’s noteworthy that, in five visits to Panathinaikos’s home court, the record is 4-1 in favor of the Greens, with the exception being Bartzokas’ win with Lokomotiv (71-77) in the 2015/2016 season, in the first phase.

The derby and the ‘farewell’ after the Cup

When we talk about the clashes between Panathinaikos and Bartzokas, the lion’s share in terms of memories concern the derbies between the eternal rivals in the two seasons (2012-2014) when the 52-year-old coach sat on Olympiacos’s bench.

In those two seasons they clashed in all competitions. And they clashed in the Top 16 of the EuroLeague as well, with one win each (Panathinaikos at the Olympic Sports Center Athens, Olympiacos at the Peace and Friendship Stadium), with the two teams securing a ticket to the playoffs without a home court advantage in 2014.

Abroad, the Greens dominated, as they won all four of titles they played for, with two doubles. In the 2012/2013 season, despite Bartzokas’ two wins at the start, Panathinaikos got the Cup by winning in the final and the championship in 3-0 wins in the playoffs.

In the 2013/2014 season, Panathinaikos prevailed in the semifinal, while in the finals they won the championship in 3-2 wins, with a double break.

The last clash between the eternal rivals was the one that cost Georgios Bartzokas his post in Piraeus, in October 2014 at the Olympic Sports Center in Athens (77-76), with Batista’s buzzer beater dunk.

That win by Dusko Ivanovic’s incomplete team had made people angry, with a group of fans “welcoming” the team at the Peace and Friendship Stadium with not so peaceful or friendly a mood, with the blame (also) going to Bartzokas, who left his post as head coach.