{"id":37161,"date":"2024-06-18T09:43:42","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T13:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=37161"},"modified":"2024-06-18T10:47:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T14:47:03","slug":"joe-mazzulla-wears-but-first-let-me-thank-god-shirt-after-winning-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/06\/joe-mazzulla-wears-but-first-let-me-thank-god-shirt-after-winning-championship.html","title":{"rendered":"Joe Mazzulla Wears &#8216;But First Let Me Thank God&#8217; Shirt After Winning Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_37188\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37188\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/06\/Joe-Mazzulla-v02_credit-NBA-on-ESPN-YouTube.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-37188\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/06\/Joe-Mazzulla-v02_credit-NBA-on-ESPN-YouTube-550x413.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37188\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NBA on ESPN\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla wore a shirt that read, \u201cBut First Let Me Thank God\u201d across the front of it as he and his players celebrated winning the franchise\u2019s 18th championship. Mazzulla, who speaks often about his Christian faith, wasted no time praising God after the Celtics\u2019 18-point win in Game 5 in Boston. The 35-year-old head coach wore a black crewneck throughout the series-clinching game and appeared to come fully prepared with his shirt underneath.<\/p>\n<p>Mazzulla went viral ahead of Game 2 of the NBA Finals when a reporter predictably\u00a0brought up the topic of race\u00a0during a pregame press conference. The reporter prefaced his question to Mazzulla by explaining that this was the first time since 1975 that two black head coaches &#8211; with Jason Kidd of the Mavericks being on the other bench &#8211; squared off for the NBA title. They then proceeded to ask the head coach if he found that fact significant given \u201cthe plight\u201d of black head coaches in the NBA. Mazzulla wasn\u2019t having it and immediately hit the reporter back with a question of his own.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AFO0o_R8ryM?si=E13KOpScV0OL_hMg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Mazzulla said, to which the reporter said nothing in return, \u201cI wonder how many of those have been Christian coaches?\u201d This isn\u2019t the first time Mazzulla has offered up a stark, faith-based response when asked a question unrelated to the game being played on the floor. During a postgame press conference in December of last year, he was asked if he met the Royal Family after Prince William and Kate Middleton attended a Celtics game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJesus, Mary and Joseph?\u201d he asked jokingly. \u201cI\u2019m only familiar with one royal family.\u201d With their dominant series victory over Dallas, the Celtics now hold the title of most championships in NBA history with 18, one more than the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla wore a shirt that read, \u201cBut First Let Me Thank God\u201d across the front of it as he and his players celebrated winning the franchise\u2019s 18th championship. Mazzulla, who speaks often about his Christian faith, wasted no time praising God after the Celtics\u2019 18-point win in Game 5 in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":37188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3630,7,10],"tags":[48,6477,6474],"class_list":["post-37161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes","category-entertainment","category-sports","tag-boston-celtics","tag-joe-mazzulla","tag-nba-championship"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Joe Mazzulla Wears &#039;But First Let Me Thank God&#039; Shirt After Winning Championship<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla wore a shirt that read, \u201cBut First Let Me Thank God\u201d as he and his players celebrated winning the championship.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/06\/joe-mazzulla-wears-but-first-let-me-thank-god-shirt-after-winning-championship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joe Mazzulla Wears &#039;But First Let Me Thank God&#039; Shirt After Winning Championship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla wore a shirt that read, \u201cBut First Let Me Thank God\u201d as he and his players celebrated winning the championship.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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