Boston Celtics reserve center Neemias Queta had yet to play any meaningful minutes this season.

That changed in a big way during Boston’s 135-132 overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Queta was benched for the first three quarters before Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla inserted him into the game with 8:54 left in regulation and with Boston trailing by 21 points. It seemed like the usual garbage time minutes for the athletic, seven-foot-tall man.

But Queta, with his energy at both ends of the court and his ruthlessness on the boards, was in the midst of a wild turnaround that saw the Celtics make up that significant deficit. Queta played the rest of the game and recorded just two points, but he grabbed nine rebounds – five of them offensive – in fourteen minutes. He finished with a plus-18 rating, easily the best on the Celtics.

It was an improbable performance in Boston’s first loss of the season and drew applause from Mazzulla.

“It’s an honor for him, an honor for the boys. They just always stayed ready,” Mazzulla told reporters, according to NBC Sports Boston’s post-game reporting. “We just went with different setups to try to do something about it. Everyone played a role in that. I thought (Queta) did a great job on both ends of the floor, just his activity and his physicality gave us a spark. So it was great work by him and I appreciate that.”

Queta showed why the Celtics counted on his upside and rewarded him with a three-year contract this offseason – somewhat of a surprising deal considering the 25-year-old played just 28 games for Boston during the 2023-24 season.

Queta knocked down an alley-oop from Jaylen Brown just seconds before hitting the floor, then went to work corralling defensive rebounds and keeping possessions alive on the other end of the floor with supreme effort.

One of Queta’s better moments came with 43.1 seconds left on a drive by Pacers guard Ben Sheppard. Sheppard drove the baseline and tried to finish on the other side of the rim, but was met by Queta, who timed everything perfectly for a key rejection.

Mazzulla stayed with Queta above Al Horford, Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman for almost the final nine minutes of regulation time and overtime. None of that trio has the same kind of athleticism as Queta.

While Horford’s role has been solidified, Kornet and Tillman’s positions in the rotation have become more fluid. And Queta’s strong performance opened up the opportunity for him to potentially steal minutes from Kornet and Tillman in the future.