Brad Stevens reveals two key Celtics reserves had offseason surgeries

Kristaps Porzingis wasn’t the only Celtics big man who went under the knife this offseason.

During Celtics media day Tuesday, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens announced forward Xavier Tillman and center Luke Kornet also underwent surgeries in the wake of Boston’s NBA championship.

Both have fully recovered and are expected to participate in Celtics training camp.

“Xavier had a knee scope in the end of July and is doing great,” Stevens said. “He’ll be full-go for practice (on Wednesday) and has been playing for the last week or so. Luke had his wrist operated on right after the season. Same thing — cleared to play.”

Having Kornet and Tillman available early in the season will be important for Boston, as both should be part of the plan to replace Porzingis.

Al Horford is expected to start at center until Porzingis returns, but at age 38, his workload needs to be managed, which will create opportunities for reserves like Kornet, Tillman and Neemias Queta.

“Those timelines matched up well with the start of the season, obviously with some big depth issues, potentially,” Stevens said. “So we’re fortunate that our training staff and those guys, with the effort they put in to get back, have both done a really good job of building it up so that they’ll be ready to go when we need them to go (on Wednesday).”

Kornet, a 7-foot-2 journeyman, appeared in 63 games last season and set or tied career highs in field-goal percentage, free-throw percentage, rebounds per game and blocks per game.

The defensive-minded Tillman came over from Memphis in a deadline trade last February. He and Kornet both re-signed this offseason as the Celtics kept their entire rotation intact.

Porzingis, who had surgery in late June to repair the “rare” leg injury he suffered during the NBA Finals, is targeting a December return to game action. Stevens said the team is “very, very pleased … and maybe a little surprised” by the progress Porzingis has made.

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