Boston Celtics: 3 takeaways from 2018-19 season opener

2. New and improved bench

One of the biggest things that held the Celtics back last year was their poor bench play. Last season they were only able to average 34.6 points per game — 18th in the NBA.

This season, the bench came up with a new nickname for their new and improved bench, calling themselves “Bench With Attitude,” or B.W.A. for short. When a team’s bench is comprised of Marcus Morris, Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier, there’s surely going to be some attitude and competitiveness to go around.

The Celtics bench scored a combined 44 points, which would’ve been good enough for the top one or two benches in the league. The Sacramento Kings averaged 44.4 points last year, which was No. 1 in the league.

To go along with the 44 points, they shot 18-for-34 from the field and 7-for-17 from 3. They were able to score and shoot the ball efficiently. There was definitely a new energy in the home opener for the Celtics bench.

Will that be easy for them to maintain? That’s still something that needs to been seen over the next stretch of games. For now, seeing this stat line from the bench was a refreshing start for the season.

Morris was the team’s best player off the bench. He scored 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field and went 2-for-7 from 3. He added 10 rebounds and two steals to go along with that. Let’s not get too carried away after one night of action, but the bench did look a lot better.