Kara Lawson, who coached with the Celtics in 2019-20, is the head coach of the Team USA women.
Congratulations are in order for former Boston Celtics assistant coach Kara Lawson, who led the Team USA Women's National Team to an opening game win at the 2026 FIBA World Cup in Berlin, Germany on Friday.
The Americans, who have won 11 World Cup gold medals, are the overwhelming favorite in this tournament. They beat China 94-61 and will play two more Group Stage contests before the elimination round begins. The final of the World Cup is set for Sept. 13.
In the victory, familiar WNBA names led the way: Caitlin Clark had 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting, while also dishing out a game-high 11 assists. Paige Bueckers, the UConn product, had 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Angel Reese, making her national team debut, had five points and a team-high nine rebounds.
Lawson, 45, spent 13 years as a player in the WNBA with Sacramento, Connecticut and Washington, earning an All-Star appearance in 2007. She won the 2005 WNBA championship with Sacramento as well. She also won three Olympic gold medals. She has spent six years as the women's head coach at Duke, winning more than 100 games and getting to the Elite Eight last season.
Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward (20) talks with ESPN sports analyst Kara Lawson during warm up before the start of the game against the Milwaukee Bucks at TD Garden. David Butler II-USA TODAY SportsHowever, before that, she spent the 2019-20 season as an assistant coach under Brad Stevens with the Celtics. She was the first female coach in franchise history, but left after that season to go to Duke.
While she appears quite happy at Duke, there were certainly some that thought she could have been the franchise's next head coach at some point. They hired Ime Udoka to replace Stevens, and then gave the job to Joe Mazzulla when Udoka was let go for non-basketball reasons.
It's unclear if Lawson has a desire to ever get back into the NBA world.
Also in the news for the Celtics
The Celtics will have 27 national television games in the 2026-27 season. As noted by Sports Media Watch, those will include 10 on ESPN/ABC, 10 on NBC properties and seven games on Amazon Prime Video.
But in addition to those nationally televised games, the Celtics will have four more that will air on NBA TV, the league-owned network.
Those games are: Nov. 21 at Kings (10 p.m. ET), Nov. 29 at Spurs (4 p.m. ET), Jan. 2 at Portland (10 p.m. ET) and March 27 at the Miami Heat (8 p.m. ET).
Now, 31 of the team's 82 games are set to be aired on something other than NBC Sports Boston.
