Palace were impressive in their first game of the Premier League season.
"We worked well together," Richards told the Palace website. "We've seen Chelsea throughout the last season and in pre-season, also at the Club World Cup, they have a very dangerous attack.
"So we knew that if we could alleviate them scoring goals, we would have a good chance. You know a draw is still a good point regardless.
"It's a good way to start the season and I think we can move forward with this performance in the second half.
"One thing we talked about before the game was embracing the toughness that Chelsea are going to bring. It wasn't going to perfect, but as long as we could keep a clean sheet, that's number one for us."
On Ebere Eze's free-kick goal being disallowed, Richards also stated: "I think everybody in the stadium thought it was a goal and somehow VAR saw something else, you know you live and die by VAR these days.
"But regardless, it was it was a good free-kick and hopefully we get a few more of those."