Philadelphia 76ers Head Coach Doc Rivers was named Eastern Conference Coach of the Month and Utah Jazz Head Coach Quin Snyder was named the Western Conference Coach of the Month for games played in December and January.
It’s Rivers’ 12th career Coach of the Month award and his first since Nov. 2018. The only coach who has received the award more often than Rivers is San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, who has earned Coach of the Month honors 17 times since the NBA first began awarding Coach of the Month by conference in 2002-03. Phil Jackson, George Karl and Pat Riley were each named Coach of the Month on 12 occasions.
Rivers has coached the 76ers to an Eastern Conference-leading 15-6 start through the first 21 games of the season, including a 20-point comeback victory at Indiana last night. Rivers’ 76ers lead the league in blocks and fast-break points per game, while also ranking in the top five in steals per game, free throws made and attempted per game and opponent field-goal percentage.
Philadelphia’s 106.8 defensive rating is the best in the Eastern Conference, third in the NBA, while the team is 9-1 on the season when holding its opponent to fewer than 110 points. The team’s starting five – Danny Green, Tobias Harris, Joel Embiid, Seth Curry and Ben Simmons – is a perfect 11-0 when playing together. The unit’s 13.8 net rating is the best in the Eastern Conference among lineups that have played at least 200 minutes together, while holding opponents to .444 shooting from the field.
The 76ers earned 14 wins within their first 20 games for the first time since 2000 and led the East through 20 contests for the first time since 2000-01. Philadelphia sports the best home record in the NBA at 10-1. The team swept three of the four two-game series it played in over the first month-plus of the season.
Rivers joins Brett Brown, Larry Brown, Jim Lynam and Billy Cunningham as 76ers coaches to capture a Coach of the Month award.
The award is Snyder’s second career Coach of the Month award, previously garnering the accolade for games played in March and April of 2017-18.
Snyder helped the Jazz to a 15-5 (.750) record to start the 2020-21 season, the second-best record in the NBA. The team posted an NBA season-best 11-game winning streak from Jan. 8 to Jan. 29. The streak marked the eighth time in team history that the Jazz have won 11-straight games and is the second such streak during Snyder’s tenure as head coach (Jan. 24, 2018 – Feb. 14, 2018).
During the month of January, the team set an NBA record for the most threes ever made in a calendar month, knocking down 285 three-point field goals during the month. The team currently leads the NBA in threes made per contest (17.0) and rebounds per game (49.4). Utah has connected on 15 threes in 10-straight games, which ties an NBA record, also knocking down a franchise-record 25 threes in a 131-118 win at Milwaukee on Jan. 8
Over the course of Utah’s 11-game win streak, the team outscored their opponents 117.0 – 101.4, while also knocking down 18.5 threes per contest on 41.9 percent from beyond the arc, holding opponents to 42.8 percent from the field and 30.7 from three-point range.
Snyder is the third coach in Jazz history to win multiple Coach of the Month honors, along with Frank Layden (twice) and Jerry Sloan (10 times).
