Washington Wizards: 3 takeaways from 116-107 loss to the Boston Celtics

Takeaway #1: Scott Brooks Unleashes the Bench

At one point in the third quarter on Friday, the Wizards trailed the Boston Celtics by 28 points. With head coach Scott Brooks in desperate need of a spark, Brooks turned to his bench for energy and effort to try to claw back into a game that was on the brink of becoming out of hand. Players such as Garrison Mathews, Mo Wagner, and Ish Smith answered the call in a tremendous way, and immediately began chipping into the massive lead, all with Bradley Beal resting on the bench. Mathews — known for his sharpshooting — showed some welcome intensity on the defensive end, working to shift the momentum throughout the third quarter.

After the game, Brooks remarked that he “probably should’ve played [Mathews] earlier,” because of his tremendous effort on both sides of the ball. In a game with very few positive outcomes, seeing Mathews and Wagner have success for Washington was a welcome sight and was pivotal in the comeback attempt in Boston on Friday. Both Wagner and Mathews finished with a positive plus/minus in the loss to the Celtics: +12 and +17, respectively. Those were the highest marks on the team.

It was encouraging to see the bench make an impact after the second unit has struggled for most of the season, but there’s still (seemingly) no rhyme or reason to who Brooks trots out. While Wagner got his most minutes of the season, and Mathews finally got to play meaningful minutes, Troy Brown Jr finished with zero minutes for the third consecutive game.