Watch Brad Stevens hold his own during a Celtics game of knockout

BOSTON -- The Celtics traditionally hold a open scrimmage for season ticket holders at the TD Garden ahead of the exhibition opener, but a shortened preseason and Garden scheduling conflicts caused the team to call a bit of an audible this year. With the preseason opener looming Monday night, the team elected to hold a variety of shooting and skill games in front of a few thousand fans as Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward made their first appearances on the Garden floor as Celtics.

"They're not going to see much basketball, so it's going to be hopefully more fun and an interactive session," Stevens said before the event. "We usually do a scrimmage, but we didn't have availability for the arena at all for the dates we were most interested in for a scrimmage. It was more about being able to get in here since we play tomorrow night and do something a little bit more lighter and a little bit more fun. I'm sure the games will be more fun."

With Stevens freed up from his coaching duties on the evening, the former division three player took to the court to take part in a game of knockout with several rookies on the Celtics roster. The 40-year-old knocked down a number of 3-point shots during the event and lasted until the final three before getting eliminated by second round pick Jabari Bird. The former Cal guard ultimately won the event.





Next up was a four-man skills challenge between Marcus Smart, Daniel Theis, Shane Larkin and Terry Rozier. Smart and Larkin advanced to the finals in what may have been the simplest skills challenge event in basketball history. You can at least watch Smart put up a failed alley-oop to himself in the finals of the event.



 

Jayson Tatum bested Gordon Hayward, Guerschon Yabusele and Al Horford in the 3-point shooting competition to close out the basketball activities for the evening. Here are the official results of the contest:

1st round

Hayward 16 points
Tatum 14 points
Yabusele 12 points
Horford 10 points





Finals

Tatum 19 points
Hayward 14 points