After leading a storied club back to the Final Four for the first time in five years, Georgios Bartzokas of Olympiacos Piraeus has been voted the Aleksander Gomelskiy Coach of the Year by his peers on the benches of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
In his second stint with Olympiacos, Bartzokas steered the Reds to a second-place finish in the regular season with a 19-9 record. He then led Olympiacos back to its first Final Four since 2017 with a thrilling 3-2 victory in its playoff series against AS Monaco, which made him the first coach in EuroLeague history to win three Game 5s.
Coach Bartzokas becomes the fourth person to win the Coach of the Year honor at least twice. He had previously been voted for the award in 2012-13, in his first season on the Olympiacos bench, when he helped the Reds defend their EuroLeague title with a resounding pair of victories at the Final Four in London.
After finishing 12th last season, Olympiacos used a run of six home wins early in this one to anchor itself near the top of the standings. Its dominance at Peace and Friendship Stadium in Piraeus continued for nine consecutive victories there, lasting through the 2021 portion of the season. The Reds, who would finish the season with a league-best 13-1 mark at home, fell out of the top four places in the standings only following a rough patch of four consecutive defeats ending on February 2. Four victories in a row followed – including a classic overtime thriller against their Final Four semifinals opponent, Anadolu Efes Istanbul – and soon they clinched home-court advantage in the playoffs.
Their best-of-five playoff against Monaco was one to remember, as neither team could win two games in a row. After dropping Game 2 at home, the Reds immediately regained home-court advantage with a Game 3 win in Monaco. It all came down to a Game 5 thriller in which they came from behind in the fourth quarter to win 94-88 and make their long-awaited Final Four return.
It is no exaggeration to…
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