“To show the true mark of us being a good team, we just have to come right back out [tonight] and go out and get that W,’’ said Rasheed Wallace.

The Celtics’ bench, which maintained and stretched leads through the first six games of the season, failed to keep pace with the Suns. Wallace missed all six of his 3-point attempts. Marquis Daniels was the Celtics’ top bench scorer with 9 points and Wallace had 8.

“We knew they were going to come in and score,’’ Wallace said. “They’re a running team, they try to take advantage of it with fast-break points, transition points, before the defense can get set. That’s something they’ve been doing for years. We just had to pretty much play our game. We couldn’t try to go back and forth with them.

“We could have took our time on offense more. There were a couple possessions where we, myself included, shot it real quick. We didn’t make them play defense. The times we did make good passes and shared the ball real well, with at least three or four passes, they were running all over the place and we hit a majority of our shots. We have to go back to the drawing board and correct that.’’

“It’s rare when I’ll say, ‘Keep Grant Hill on the floor,’ but we wanted him on the floor instead of Dudley,’’ Rivers said.

Hill was among the Celtics’ first choices of free agents during the offseason. But Hill turned down the Celtics to remain with the Suns.

“He just kind of changed his mind and decided to stay pat,’’ Rivers said before the game. “[Steve ] Nash had a lot to do with it, they had a great relationship, and he knew who they were. I think he was just more comfortable staying. I thought it came down to, he wants to play a lot of minutes and didn’t want to come off the bench yet. He missed a lot of his career, so I could see that.’’

Hill, 37, who played for Rivers with the Magic, appeared in 82 games for the first time in his career last season.

“We’ve just got so many shooters on the floor, basically we’ve got five perimeters out there,’’ Richardson said. “So, we spread the floor, let [Nash] go in there and run screen-and-rolls, and hit the open guy.

“After the first quarter, they could see in my eyes I had the stroke, I had the hot hand, and they just kept throwing me the ball. Coach kept calling plays for me, and I just kept on answering.’’

Davis confirmed his “dream’’ is to play in the NFL after his NBA career, but added that he also hoped to play other sports. “My best sport growing up was baseball,’’ Davis said.

Frank Dell’Apa can be reached at f_dellapa@globe.com.