At 35 years old, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla became the youngest NBA head coach to win a championship since Bill Russell achieved the same feat for the Celtics in 1969. The second-year head coach led the Celtics to a 64-18 regular season and a 4-1 series win over the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.
Though the NBA has many problems, Mazzulla is not one of them. He is a positive influence in a league filled with controversial personalities.
Mazzulla stands out not only for his team’s success on the court but also because of his devout Catholic faith. When the Celtics won the championship on Monday night, Mazzulla put on a shirt that said, “But first … let me thank God” that he wore during the postgame festivities.
Instead of going to Disney World to celebrate the championship, Mazzulla plans to go to Jerusalem.
“But we went last year, and we stopped right along this mountainside of the Kidron Valley, and you could see a path in between the mountains … [and] during the time, the only way that [Jesus] could have gotten from Jericho to Jerusalem was through this valley,” Mazzulla said in an NBC Sports Boston docuseries that aired last month. “And right there, I was like, ‘We have to walk that.'”
“Most people go to Disney World or whatever, but … I think [the Holy Land is] the most important place to go back and recenter yourself,” he added.
The coach also does a prayer walk around TD Garden to pray the rosary before games, and in the docuseries, he said he collects rosary beads. One of his favorites is a rosary made from the original hardwood floor of the now-demolished Boston Garden.
Mazzulla also references his Catholic faith in other interviews.
In November 2022, the media asked Mazzulla about what it was like for the Celtics to play a game in front of two members of the British royal family: the Prince and Princess of Wales. Mazzulla responded by referencing his Catholic faith while acknowledging he knows little about the British royal family.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph? I’m only familiar with one royal family,” Mazzulla said. “I don’t know too much about them. But hopefully, they’re Celtics fans.”
Similarly, when a reporter tried to make Mazzulla’s NBA Finals appearance this year about race, he shut it down. The reporter asked Mazzulla about facing Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd in the NBA Finals — because both men are biracial and part black.
Mazzulla responded by saying, “I wonder how many of those have been Christian coaches?” He then moved on to the next question.
Sirius XM asked him later in the series why he identifies more with his religion than his race. He provided that question with a more in-depth response.
“I am half African American, half Italian,” Mazzulla said. “And so, but most importantly, the decision I made in my life, I decided to not look at my lens through either one of those, and I decided to look at my lens through that of which is Christianity. And so my identity is in Him first, and that comes before anything else. And that’s just been important to me because, what he’s done for me in my life, the people that I have around me that have brought me there, and it’s important for my wife, and it’s important for my family. It doesn’t mean that it’s any more important than any other lens to which we can look at, but for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And we’re going to look at the lens of life through Christianity and everything that comes with it.”
Mazzulla took over as the Celtics interim head coach before the 2022-2023 season because head coach Ime Udoka violated team conduct policy by having an affair with a team employee. So Mazzulla got the job because of someone else’s infidelity, and he made the franchise feel like it made the right decision. He led the Celtics to an NBA Finals appearance last season, and his team won it this year.
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Instead of kowtowing to China or using his platform to spread divisive politics like LeBron James, Steve Kerr, Mark Cuban, or Gregg Popovich, Mazzulla promotes his faith, which he sees as a significant reason for his success in life.
If the NBA had more leaders like Mazzulla and issued fewer statements supporting abortion on demand, maybe the league could reconnect with more sports fans. Even with the NBA’s problems, Mazzulla is someone worth rooting for.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.