Tuesday 5 March 2019 05:57, UK
Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons has been named Eastern Conference Player of the Week with Utah Jazz scorer Donovan Mitchell taking Western Conference honours.
This is the second time in Simmons' two-year career he has received the award and first since April 2-8, 2018.
With Joel Embiid named Player of the Week for December 31-January 6, Philadelphia become the fourth team in the NBA this season to have multiple players receive the honour.
Simmons joins Embiid and Andre Miller as well as Hall of Famers Allen Iverson, Charles Barkley, Julius Erving and Moses Malone as the only Philadelphia players to receive the honor multiple times since its inception in 1979-80.
Simmons led the 76ers to a 2-1 week, including road wins over Western Conference opponents New Orleans and Oklahoma City. The week saw Simmons average 16.7 points, 13.3 rebounds, 8.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 1.0 blocks per game, while shooting 55.0 per cent from the field. He is one of two players in the NBA this season to hold these averages over single a week.
Simmons led Philadelphia to its first-ever win in Oklahoma City as he recorded his ninth triple-double of the season with 11 points, 13 rebounds, 11 assists, two blocks and two steals.
He closed out the week with his second straight triple-double and 10th of the season with 25 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists and three steals against Golden State.
Across the three Week 20 games, Simmons accounted for nearly 30 per cent of Philadelphia's total rebounds and assists.
Overall, the Louisiana State product holds season averages of 17.0 points, 9.1 rebounds, 7.9 assists and 1.3 steals per game.
In the West, Donovan Mitchell scooped Player of the Week honours for the second time this season.
In three games last week, Mitchell averaged 34.0 points on 46.6 per cent from the field and 44.4 per cent from three-point range. He also averaged 5.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists, helping the Jazz to a 3-0 record with wins over the Clippers, Nuggets and Bucks.
Mitchell called his performance against Milwaukee (46 points, three rebounds, six assists) the best regular season game of his young career.
"Just because of the way I mentally evolved throughout the whole game," he said. "At the beginning of the game, I really wasn't sure what I was doing. They threw some different looks at me. Then as the game went on, I started talking to myself, 'You gotta push through. You gotta push through those mistakes'." He went on to score 17 points in the fourth quarter to help erase a 17-point deficit and earn the Jazz their 36th win of the year.
Mitchell was equally pivotal in last week's win over the Denver Nuggets, providing a memorable crunch-time performance. "I have a lot of pride in those shots," he said afterward. "I think the biggest thing is I have confidence in myself and my team-mates and coaches have confidence in me making those shots."
Mitchell was previously named the Western Conference's Player of the Week for the week of January 6-13. He is the first Jazz player to win multiple Player of the Week awards in a single season since Carlos Boozer in 2009-10.
