Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder has been named the NBA’s Western Conference Coach of the Month for games played in December and January.
Snyder has led his team to a 15-5 record, the second-best mark in the NBA, to start the season.
Most recently, the Jazz dominated teams during an 11-game win streak that spanned most of January. Utah posted a league-best 13-3 record last month, including a perfect 8-0 mark at Vivint Arena.
“Quin Snyder is a very underrated coach,” Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle said last month. “Quietly, he’s built this team into a very cohesive group that’s really at the top of the league in both offense and defense.”
There Jazz were, indeed, very good on both ends of the floor last month. Here’s how they ranked in some key statistical categories:
• No. 4 — Offensive Rating — 116.5
• No. 7 — Defensive Rating — 107.9
• No. 2 — Net Rating — 9.2
• No. 1 — Rebounding — 48.9 per game (53.5 percent)
• No. 2 — Offensive rebounding — 30.2 percent
The Jazz were also great, and historically so, from behind the 3-point arc in January, setting a record for the most 3s a team has ever made in a calendar month. Utah’s 285 makes from downtown eclipsed the previous record of 279 set by the Houston Rockets in December of 2016.
So far this season, the Jazz have led the league in 3-point attempts per game (42.5) and makes per game (17). They’re 39.9 3-point percentage is third best.
“They’ve been good for a long time,” Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr said when his team played the Jazz last month. “The continuity is apparent right away. They all know each other so well. They execute their stuff beautifully.”
The 11-game win streak matched the longest of Snyder’s tenure as the team’s head coach. During the streak, the Jazz outscored opponents by a double-digit average, 117-101.4.
This is the second time in Snyder’s career that he has received Coach of the Month honors (March and April of the 2017-18 season). Snyder is now the third Jazz coach in history to win multiple Coach of the Month honors, along with Frank Layden (twice) and Jerry Sloan (10 times).
Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers was named the Eastern Conference’s Coach of the Month for December and January.
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