After entering the league as a second-round pick in 2020, nothing was ever going to be given to Xavier Tillman at the NBA level. Anything he wanted, he was going to have to work for it.
Now set to begin Year 6 of his NBA journey — after ending the preseason with a flourish — the work continues, even with a set role seemingly carved out for him in Boston.
“He’s just the ultimate professional,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said after Tillman’s last-second shot to beat the Raptors in the team’s final preseason game Wednesday night. “It’s a credit to him and just his mindset to come in like he has, and he’s given us everything we could ask for.”
While everybody gets to see his work during games and his coaches and teammates see the work that takes place at practice, Tillman revealed that he puts in some extra work at night to make sure he’s maximizing his potential in the NBA.
“The process is really just not being comfortable. Like, the comfortable thing to do is to not do my — I call them night labs, which is when I shoot at night,” Tillman told Celtics insider Chris Forsberg. “But the comfortable thing is to not do the night labs and to just be home every night and just kicking it and just being content with everything that I have.
“I’m grateful for everything that I have, but I’m not content with it. And the separation I guess for me is that I just want the most that I can get out of playing basketball. And so for me, in order to get that, you’ve got to put in the work.”
Tillman noted that the night labs involve more than just shooting.
“You have to do all these extra stretches and get all this treatment and get massages all the time. Even if you’re like, ‘I’m not even that sore,’ you have to do all these things to make sure you’re feeling as good as possible for as long as possible,” he shared.
While the game itself presents numerous variables that determine wins and losses, hard work away from the arena never loses.
“Preparation to me is like, when I say it’s better than the game, it’s more so just getting to see yourself progress and progress and progress and progress, because in a game, you have wins and losses,” he said. “But like when it comes to just progression, working out, there’s not too many losses — as long as you’re pushing yourself in there. So it’s pretty awesome.”
