“Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Philippians 2:14
Bad Call
“Hey, Ref! That was a bad call. Can’t you see?” “That was a foul! Blow your whistle.” “Travel? I didn’t travel. And I didn’t step out of bounds last time either.”
Have you ever heard comments like that while watching or playing a game? Maybe you’ve said or yelled something similar. While playing in a church league basketball game, I heard those exact words—and more. Every single call was argued, and both sides were growing tense. We were not setting a very good example for those watching, and we certainly were not pleasing God with our actions.
In Philippians 4, God didn’t have Paul say, “Do everything without arguing—except while playing sports because those refs make bad calls.” No. God says do everything without arguing. No exceptions.
The next time you’re watching a game or even playing in one, remember God’s command to do everything without complaining or arguing. You’ll be surprised how much better you feel and how much more fun the game will become.
THIS IS THE GET IN THE GAME PODCAST
WITH SCOTT LINEBRINK
Our guest today is Fonzo Martinez, the boys basketball head coach at McKinney Christian Academy in Texas.
In 2026, Martinez led his club to the 4A state championship for the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS). He joins host Scott Linebrink to talk about leadership, faith, winning and trusting in the process.
What a season, what a journey, what a team, what a BROTHERHOOD✊🏼🫡 This team was SPECIAL, and has only cemented the standard and CU1TURE of our program. Time to get in the gym, and start working for next season… we’re coming for that 🏆💍💪🏼
I was frustrated. I was having a difficult time getting the girls to take practice seriously. I often reminded them, “You play the way you practice,” yet their effort and focus were not reflecting the standard I believed they were capable of reaching. As a coach, I knew something had to change — not just in what we practiced, but in how we practiced.
Before one practice, I wrote a true-or-false question on the dry erase board: “Practice makes perfect?” I gave the girls time to discuss it among themselves, then asked them to record their answers. Seven players chose true, while two chose false. I then asked each group to explain their reasoning.
“You need to practice if you want to get better,” said our captain, speaking for the true group. The others agreed, adding that without practice there can be no improvement at all. They weren’t wrong, but I felt there was something deeper still missing.
Then one of our junior players raised her hand. Violet said, “I agree that you have to practice to improve, but you have to practice correctly to get better. And I don’t think anyone except Jesus is perfect. So I would change the saying to, ‘Perfect practice makes you better.’”
So often in life — at practice, at work, in school, or even in our walk with Christ — we simply go through the motions. We show up, but our hearts aren’t fully engaged. We may be busy, but we are not always intentional. Just as careless repetition on the court does not lead to growth, careless habits in our faith do not lead us closer to God.
Spiritual growth, like athletic growth, requires purposeful practice. It requires humility, reflection and a willingness to recognize when we are doing something incorrectly. We will make mistakes, but growth happens when we acknowledge them, repent and allow God to correct and shape us. Scripture reminds us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).
When we raise our standards, pursue excellence with the right heart, and practice with intention, we grow stronger — both on and off the court. Walking in His ways becomes more natural, discipline becomes more meaningful, and improvement follows.
Perfect practice doesn’t make us perfect, but it does make us better!
UConn was down by 19 to Duke. Then, all of a sudden, the Huskies were headed back to the Final Four.
The furious comeback culminated with freshman Braylon Mullins hitting a near half-court 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left to give No. 2 seed UConn a 73-72 lead and a stunning Elite Eight win over No. 1 seed Duke. For more than half the game, Duke appeared ready to cruise into the Final Four. But UConn kept slowly chipping away, eventually cutting the lead to one point in the final minute.
With 10 seconds left to play, all Duke really had to do was hold the ball and head to the free-throw line. But as the Huskies applied full-court pressure, they deflected a pass and the ball ended up in the hands of Mullins with about 2.5 seconds left. He had to shoot it. Nothing but net.
It goes down as one of the most epic March Madness moments we’ve seen in recent memory, and it all came after a massive comeback by UConn. The Huskies could’ve relented and given up, but instead, they kept chipping away. As they say, it’s never over until it’s over, even down to the last second.
In life, when trials, failures and disappointments add up, we’re tempted to think the deficit is too big to overcome. We go through seasons where it feels like the outcome is already decided. We just feel defeated.
But that’s not the story the Gospel tells us.
The story of Jesus is the ultimate comeback story, at least in the sense of redefining what we thought was final. The cross looked like the end, and everything about that moment appeared to say it was over. My church occasionally sings the song “Name Above All Names” by Charity Gayle, and part of the lyrics go like this:
The sun was darkened and the Heavens thundered And for a moment death had thought it conquered But it wasn’t over ’til You said, “It’s over” Your Word is greater still
That’s because three days after Jesus went into the grave, He proved it wasn’t over.
What these come-from-behind, last-second wins remind us is that as long as there’s still time on the clock, the story isn’t finished. We see that with the man on the cross next to Jesus who secured his place in Heaven in his final breaths. God is always at work, and He’s always available, even if it feels otherwise.
Philippians 1:6 tells us that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Life will deal you some big deficits occasionally, and at times things will feel like they’re “over.” But with Jesus, that’s far from the truth.
Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, March 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
Heading into the season, some NBA pundits and fans saw this as a “gap year” for the Boston Celtics. Star guard Jayson Tatum was coming off a torn Achilles suffered in last year’s playoffs, while key contributors Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday were dealt in the offseason. Longtime center Al Horford also departed, signing with the Golden State Warriors in free agency.
But as the NBA enters the postseason, there the Celtics are, back in familiar territory as the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference after posting a 55-26 regular-season record. It’s the fifth straight season in which Boston has finished in the top two in the East. After missing most of the season recovering, Tatum is back playing, and head coach Joe Mazzulla is looking to lead his team to a second NBA championship under his watch.
The way the Celtics closed out the regular season was perhaps a microcosm of the 2025-26 season. Tatum and fellow star guards Jaylen Brown and Derrick White, along with a host of key reserves, were unavailable for Game No. 82, yet the Celtics beat the Orlando Magic — which was battling for playoff positioning — with just eight available players.
“We said it all year, one through [18], whoever steps on the floor, there’s an expectation to put us in position with an opportunity to win,” Mazzulla said Sunday after the game. “Stick to the process of winning. Today is no different than the other 81 games from the standpoint of we had eight guys, and the expectation is to put us in position to win, to execute, to play hard, to play together.”
For his efforts this season, Mazzulla is on the shortlist for Coach of the Year honors. Should he win, he’ll point the spotlight off himself and instead toward God, as he often does when on the biggest stage.
When the Celtics won the title in 2024, Mazzulla donned a black shirt that read — in all white capital letters — “BUT FIRST…LET ME THANK GOD.” As the head coach for one of the most storied franchises in all of professional sports, he sees his platform as an opportunity to regularly give glory to God.
He remained in that shirt for all of the postgame celebration photos and interviews. He was even pictured holding up the Larry O’Brien Trophy, smiling while proudly wearing the shirt. It marked the 18th world championship for the Celtics — the most of any NBA franchise — and the official photo and video documentation of it will forever include his bold and public statement of faith.
The championship celebration continued into the early hours of the morning, at which time Mazzulla walked around the confetti-filled arena with his wife, Camai, and prayed.
“On the walk we were talking a lot about how this can’t change us,” he told the audience at a Nations of Coaches event in Boston in 2024. “A lot of it was praying for the humility and perspective to not allow this to change who we are.”
The Mazzulla home proudly features a “prayer board” where he, his wife, and their children add prayers throughout the year. The board oscillates between prayers for their immediate family, friends and other loved ones. At one point, it included a prayer for Mazzulla to rise through the coaching ranks and become an NBA coach. But as he was making the grind through the Division-II ranks, coaching in the NBA felt like sort of a pipe dream.
“I almost took the ‘NBA head coach’ one down and then she kind of yelled at me and made me keep it up there,” he said at the event.
Before he was married, he started a “vision board,” where he put up pictures of goals he wanted to “speak into existence.” On it were goals like winning the NBA championship and working for the Celtics, and eventually photos of his wife and kids as well as NBA coaches Brad Stevens, Erik Spoelstra and Steve Kerr. There was also a photo of Jesus.
“The vision board kind of tells your story — like I want to work for the Celtics, I want to win a Larry O’Brien Trophy, I want to be able to learn from these three guys … I want to keep Jesus at the center of it, and I want to have a family,” he said. “So it kind of helps you tell the story about where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.”
As he’s grown older as a man and as a coach, so too has his faith and understanding of Jesus — in particular the concept of grace.
“Over the last maybe five to eight years I’ve really made a commitment to study grace and what real love is and understanding [all that],” Mazzulla said on the Sports Spectrum Podcast in October 2023. “How I’m able to accept God’s grace or how I’m able to accept His love is going to be how I’m able to give it to my kids or my wife or people. So it’s something that I’ve really been focused on the last few years: grace, love, understanding, mercy, those gifts.”
He’s also able to see how God has orchestrated his career to where he’s gone from the lower ranks of college to coaching an NBA champion.
“There’s no coincidence that I’ve had the opportunity to coach a team of the area that I’m from,” he said on the podcast. “I grew up 45 minutes from [Boston] and God has given me this. I try to be as thankful as I can every single day, knowing it might not last forever, but this is where God has us. So I can’t hide that, and I’m just forever grateful for what He’s done for me.”
Mazzulla and the Celtics will begin their 2026 playoff run Sunday against whichever team emerges as the East’s No. 7 seed from the play-in round.
