After a disappointing loss on Friday night at Kia Center, the Celtics (5-6) got exactly the response they needed Sunday night, riding a wave of energy from their bench to a 111-107 win over the Orlando Magic (4-6) and avoiding a two-game weekend sweep in Florida.

It wasn’t a “must-win” game, per se. But it’s one Boston certainly wanted as Orlando is the exact type of team the Celtics will be in the mix with in that middle tier of Eastern Conference teams vying for a top five seed as the season rolls along.

Boston trailed for much of the first half, but flipped the script with help from three unlikely heroes - Jordan Walsh, Anfernee Simons, and Luka Garza - who each delivered some of their biggest moments of the young season.

In honor of Boston’s bench being the catalyst of this big early season win, each bench standout will represent our takeaways for tonight’s column:

1. Jordan Walsh Makes His Mark

Hand up, I thought this guy was cooked.

After a preseason where the guy showed us nothing, followed by a start of the season where he was out of the rotation, I was saying on this very website that I thought this dude was an expendable piece moving forward.

Over the last few games, it looks like that take is the one that’s cooked, not the third-year player out of Arkansas.

Walsh let out a loud yell after drilling the biggest shot of his NBA career - a corner three with 12.4 seconds remaining that pushed Boston’s lead to 5 and effectively sealed the sweeping-saving win for the Celtics.

Walsh’s 6 points might not jump off the stat sheet, but his fingerprints were all over the victory.

Both of his threes came in the fourth quarter, and he dished out two clutch assists down the stretch, including one to Derrick White for a key three-pointer with 45 seconds left. Add in 6 rebounds, 2 steals, and excellent defense across a season-high 26 minutes, and Walsh finished the night with a +13 - good for second-best on the team behind fellow bench-mate Hugo Gonzalez (a nod to him later).

After logging just five minutes total across six October games, the rookie has carved out a role over the last week, topping 18 minutes in four of Boston’s last five outings.

“He’s turned it on and he’s had that sense of urgency as if he’s playing like his basketball life is on the line,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said postgame. “And he should play that way. It’s a credit to him. One of the reasons I trusted him and went with him is because of his work ethic behind the scenes.”

Walsh may have been feeling what I was feeling from a far. Even at a young age, it felt to me like the clock was ticking on whether or not it was going to work for him in Boston. But if he can settle in to being this energy who plays high-level defense while using his size to guard four of five positions, he’ll continue to be an important factor in Mazzulla’s game plans as he continues trying to figure out lineups in a post Tatum/Horford/Porzingis/Holiday/Kornet world.

(Tatum will be back, of course. But you know what I mean.)

2. The Simons Sparks Continues Shining

For Boston, the first half was all about Simons.

Less than 48 hours after being benched for nearly all of Friday’s first half, Simons erupted for 25 points before halftime, singlehandedly turning the game around.

He came off the bench firing, dropping 9 in the opening quarter and another 16 in the second. During one remarkable 2:33 stretch, Simons scored 17 straight points, flipping a six-point deficit into a nine-point lead.

Though he didn’t score in the second half, Mazzulla praised his influence beyond the numbers.

“I think Anfernee in the first half really got us going,” said Mazzulla. “He also made them change their pick-and-roll coverage, which was great. He had 25 in the first half. Didn’t score, but he constantly gave us a 2-on-1 in the second half in his minutes.”

I’ve said it on here before and I’ll say it again - I think Simons is making a real case for a possible starting role on this team. I know bench-scoring is a totally different beat, but I think his offensive game would translate from the tip.

I know he’s a minus defender, but so is current starting point guard Payton Pritchard, who continued his slow start to the season offensively with just 5 points on 2 of 8 shooting. He was 1 for 6 from deep.

Pritchard just won Sixth Man of the Year this past spring. We all know he works great in that role as a scorer off the bench. With elevated minutes and responsibilities, it hasn’t looked the same. Mazzulla has to find a way to get Simons a shot at starting at the one-spot.

I’m going to keep banging this drum until something happens.

3. The Luka Garza Game

^I saw my friend Noa Dalzell tweet this during his impactful stretch, and I had a nice chuckle. So I snagged it for this subhead.

With that said, she’s not wrong! The fourth quarter belonged to Garza.

Entering the game with 8:27 left, the big man immediately went to work, posting 6 points, 3 rebounds, a steal, and an assist during a decisive 13-0 Celtics run.

When Neemias Queta fouled out with 3:30 remaining, Garza checked back in and came up huge again, grabbing a put-back off a Jaylen Brown miss to push the lead to 5. He matched a season high with 16 points and grabbed a season-high 8 rebounds in one of his most impactful efforts to date.

“I think coaches put that responsibility on all of the guys who come off the bench to come in with energy and make the scrappy plays and play harder than the guys we’re playing against,” Garza said postgame. “That’s where we’re trying to make our bread and butter for us guys that come off the bench.”

The loss of Boston’s entire frontcourt rotation this offseason, including the Tatum injury, has been noticeable in the early part of the season. Teams have been scoring in the paint, and almost every night have been winning the rebounding battle. And while the latter happened again tonight, it was only by singular rebound (42 to 41).

Expecting this type of effort from Garza on a nightly basis would be a fool’s errand. But if they can get 70% of this, maybe 80% of this on the regular, they will be a whole lot better off for it.

Lingering Thoughts & Nuggets:

- Let’s keep the bench love going, as Gonzalez also chipped in valuable minutes, contributing a three-pointer, 2 steals, a rebound, and an assist in 13 minutes. That was good for a team-best +19 on the plus-minus. Gonzalez is someone who Mazzulla hasn’t had consistent sub patterns for until all season long. I would love for that to change. Energy guy like that should be in the mix for double-digit minutes every night.

- Boston’s reserves outscored Orlando’s bench 50-18, carrying the load on a night when the starters were relatively quiet outside of Brown and Derrick White. For a Celtics team still redefining its identity and learning to win without last season’s star power, Sunday’s win was a reminder that effort, energy, and depth can make all the difference.

- Shoutout to Boston’s non-uniformed sixth man, the Celtics’ crowd, who showed up to Kia Center like they had just got off the T at North Station. According to Sean Grande on the radio broadcast, many of those fans were in Tampa for the Patriots’ 28-23 win over the Buccaneers, then got in their cars and drove 90 minutes to Orlando to watch the other Boston team with a game that night in the Sunshine State. I have no idea what the traffic situation is like down at Raymond James Stadium, but I promise you that type of turnaround for a Gillette Stadium-TD Garden gameday double header would be nearly impossible for getting to game No. 2 on time, even with the distance being half as far. If you stay until the final whistle at a Patriots game, you’re in a parking lot on Route 1 for at least 2 hours. And that’s just to get out of the general area near the stadium. So either Grande was taking creative liberties (highly likely, I used to be his producer), or Tampa just has better roadway setup around its stadium.

CELTICS ☘️ BANNER 19 (@BiggLynch) on X Let’s go Celtics chants in Orlando 🗣️ ☘️

Up next for Boston - A Veteran’s Day showdown in primetime on Peacock against the 76ers (6-4), taking on their Atlantic Division rivals for a third time in 12 games.

Tip-off for that one set for 8:00 p.m. ET.

Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.