Horford’s 26 points was his most in a regular-season game since rejoining the Celtics, while Holiday made 4 of 6 3-pointers as Boston completed a perfect 6-0 road trip with a 117-103 win over the Grizzlies at FedEx Forum.
Horford went 9-for-18 shooting and made six of his career-high 13 3-point attempts. The Grizzlies decided to shade defenders toward other Celtics, giving Horford a pop-a-shot opportunity and he capitalized.
“I’m always trying to make the right play, and the right play tonight was for me to shoot it,” he said. “But it was great. I didn’t know what to expect with them but I was ready for it.”
Horford nailed a triple to open the fourth quarter and added his final one with 9:13 left to give the Celtics a 102-92 lead. Boston started slowly, trailing by 11 in the second period, but rallied to take a halftime lead and then pulled away in the fourth.
Mazzulla said after that Dec. 7 loss that he was “happy” the Grizzlies gave them added material for which to prepare. And whomever would be left open was encouraged to shoot the three.
“I thought once we kind of settled in, we were able to make the reads we were able to make,” he said. “Regardless of what Al’s doing, he’s important for us when he’s on the floor and I thought he took it to another level tonight.”
It was the first time in the Celtics’ 79-year history they finished a trip of six or more games undefeated. They also improved to a league-best 32-7 on the road and could tie the Warriors’ NBA record by winning their final two.
They won the six games on this trip by a combined 17.8 points, including putting away a Memphis team that is nearly healthy and fighting the Lakers and Nuggets for the third seed in the Western Conference.
“I would venture to say our guys are good everywhere,” Mazzulla said of the Celtics’ road record. “I think every year takes on a different identity and different challenges. This year, we never talked about it but it became what it is. We try to play consistent basketball. Each year you develop different kind of strengths with the same team.”
The Celtics launched 62 3-pointers, one short of the franchise high set March 12 against Oklahoma City, and made 21, 10 more than the Grizzlies. The Boston defense held Memphis to 38.6 percent shooting in the second half, including 3 for 11 from Ja Morant, who kept the Grizzlies close in the first half with 19 points.
Jayson Tatum scored 25 points to go with 14 rebounds while Derrick White broke Isaiah Thomas’s Celtics single-season 3-point record with his pull-up triple with 9:51 left in the game for No. 246. But the race for the record is not over.
Tatum hit a pair Monday and has 240 while Payton Pritchard has 238. The Celtics have seven games left.
“We talked about it on the plane and it’s pretty good that there’s three of us so close to doing something special,” White said. “Honestly, looking back on my career, I never thought I’d be in this position. I’ll hold it for now until one of them breaks my record, so that’s cool.”
The Celtics dominated most of the second half despite the absence of star guard Jaylen Brown, who was a late scratch with right knee issues. That allowed Mazzulla to give former Grizzlies big man and fan favorite Xavier Tillman the start in his first game in Memphis since the Feb. 2024 trade.
The sparsely used Tillman had stints to begin each half and finished with 2 points and three rebounds in nearly eight minutes. He was greeted with a hearty ovation when introduced last and received chest bumps from his teammates.
“I wasn’t surprised but I was pretty thankful he gave me that opportunity,” Tillman said of Mazzulla. “Especially being my first time back here, for sure. For me, with the amount of history and effort and dedication I put into this ball club, for me to get an opportunity to come back here and say thank you to the fans and thank you to my former teammates was pretty awesome.”
Gary Washburn is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @GwashburnGlobe.
