Spurs' Mitch Johnson Finishes Third in Coach of the Year Voting

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Mitch Johnson was in the running for Coach of the Year in his first full season at the helm in San Antonio, but the award went to Boston's Joe Mazzulla.

The NBA made the announcement on Tuesday night before Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals, where Johnson's Spurs are even with the Thunder thanks in large part to his leadership and strategic choices. Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff finished second in the voting, and Johnson was the only other coach to receive a first-place vote with nine of them.

Johnson took over the Spurs' head coaching job on an interim basis after the legendary Gregg Popovich suffered a stroke last season. Before this year the Spurs announced that Johnson was their man moving forward, and some fans questioned if the 39-year-old was the right man for the job. Much like the players on the roster, Johnson is young and has never made a playoff run before.

It didn't take long for Johnson to prove just how much he belongs at the helm of this team. Wearing a wire in the first game of the season, it went viral in the best way when he implored his team to "embrace the mundane" and hammer the details.

That level of discipline has become a calling card for Johnson's team this season, and he has this young group playing intense, connected, relentless basketball.

The Spurs vastly overperformed preseason expectations and won 62 games in the regular season, en route to the second-best record in the NBA behind only the Thunder. In the Western Conference Finals, Johnson and his staff are credited with making a huge chess move in the game-plan to even the series at two games apiece.

"Sometimes you have to adjust or react to something that they're doing, especially at a high rate, if it's going well for them," Johnson said. "Obviously this team is the defending champs, and Mark [Daigneault]'s a hell of a coach, so there's quite a bit that goes into it. I think there was a 24 hour stretch where if I wasn't sleeping, I was doing something, trying to be better, or I was in the game. So yeah, selfishly it's a lot of fun."

Johnson was the only coach to earn multiple Coach of the Month awards this season, and when he did he shared the credit with his staff and the whole organization. Associate Head Coach Sean Sweeney is a defensive star, expected to draw interest from teams with vacancies this summer.

Corliss Williamson, Scott King, Matt Nielsen, and Mike Noyes round out his bench, and Johnson's illustrious mentor Gregg Popovich is always around the team.

After that Game 4 masterpiece, Lakers legend Magic Johnson took to Twitter to give Mitch Johnson his flowers.

"The San Antonio Spurs were outstanding on defense tonight, holding NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to 19 points in their victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder," Johnson wrote.

"Victor Wembanyama dominated the game with 33 points, but what really impressed me was his leadership and how he communicated with his teammates throughout the entire game," the five-time champion said. "I also have to show some love and credit to Spurs’ Head Coach Mitch Johnson, who had a great game plan and made major adjustments from Game 3 to Game 4. The Series is now tied 2-2 and I can’t wait for Game 5 on Tuesday!"

Longtime fans of Magic Johnson's tweets will immediately recognize his trademarked style: a purely informational description of something we all just watched happen, like the lede of an Associated Press story. But he followed it up with something a lot of people probably didn't know.

"Oh, and a fun fact - I played against Mitch Johnson’s dad, Seattle SuperSonics superstar John Johnson in the Western Conference Finals back in 1980!"

Oh, and a fun fact - I played against Mitch Johnson’s dad, Seattle SuperSonics superstar John Johnson in the Western Conference Finals back in 1980!
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) May 25, 2026

John Johnson is remembered as one of the game's first point forwards, and he dubbed his son Mitch 'Maestro' when he was young. On Tuesday night, after his biggest triumph as a coach and before the biggest game of his career, Johnson reflected on hearing those stories from his father's perspective.

"There's a lot of stories that I got, unfortunately, over and over and over again," he said with a smile. "I was born in 86' and my dad was done, so that's all he had, was stories. So I got quite a few of them, he played against obviously guys like Magic, Oscar Robertson, whoever it was, Larry Bird, quite a bit."

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