I'm just going to reiterate the headline, because there is no other way to say it: The Boston Celtics coming back from a 26-point second-half deficit to stun the Rockets on Thursday is, all things considered, the single most impressive win that any NBA team has registered this season.

I don't care that Houston was without Chris Paul. I don't care about the two-man officiating crew that had the Twitter experts decrying every whistle down the stretch -- particularly the two offensive fouls Marcus Smart drew on James Harden sandwiched around Al Horford's go-ahead jump hook with 3.7 seconds remaining.

I don't care about any of that.

Nor should you.

The only thing that matters here is how easily, and how many times, the Celtics could've conceded to this loss. They were down 26 at one point. To the Rockets. They were on a back-to-back after playing at Charlotte on Wednesday. The 39 games they've already played this season are more than any other team in the league thanks to a super front-loaded schedule, and they looked exhausted.

Had they given in to all that and simply laid down as Houston pulled further and further away, it would've certainly been understandable. But they didn't. And Brad Stevens has every right to be proud as hell of his team's effort.

Through one lens, Stevens is right that the result of this game didn't matter as much as the resiliency Boston showed. In the grand scheme, one win in late December for a team that is going to win north of 50 games is, at best, only marginally significant, but playing with that kind of heart, that's the stuff that gets into the fabric of a team that expects to be playing in June.

That said, teams erase big deficits in the NBA all the time. But it's usually for naught. They spend all their energy fighting back and then can't get over the hump. You only have to go back one day on the schedule to see that the Nuggets, also on a back-to-back, erased a 19-point deficit against the Wolves on Wednesday. Mike Malone was just as proud of his team as Stevens was of the Celtics. Here was Malone's quote, virtually the same exact quote Stevens gave.

"Down 19 points, second half, second night of a back-to-back, we could've very easily have folded and just rolled over," Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. "I loved the fact that our guys never did that. We competed."

Malone was right. The Nuggets did compete. They also lost. In the NBA, you can come back from 50 down, but if you don't close it out and actually win the game, nobody cares. Had Boston done all that work but still fallen short, while Stevens would've still been proud and praised his team's effort, in the end, it would've been just another loss for a team treading water at 5-6 over its past 11 games. For Boston, the win, not the comeback, makes all the difference.

How did they do it? Well, for the most part, it wasn't flashy. During a timeout, Stevens was mic'd up on TNT's coverage and could be heard telling his team to "keep hitting singles." That's exactly what they did. They didn't start jacking up a bunch of contested 3s. Kyrie Irving didn't go into hero mode. They just kept playing. Started getting a few stops. Started making a few shots. Let one thing lead to another.

With less than two minutes to play in the third quarter, Boston had the lead down to 10. Every team uses that number as a mini-goal when trying to make a comeback. Get it to 10 by the fourth quarter. They were right there, had all the momentum, and then Stevens and Marcus Morris were each hit with a technical for arguing the same call. Harden would hit four straight free throws to take the lead back to 14. Boston definitely could've given up right there. Instead, the Celtics immediately regrouped and got the lead down to nine going into the fourth.

These are championship-level markers. This absolute refusal to quit. The Warriors have it. So does Houston. And the Cavs. We've seen Oklahoma City rally on the back of its refuse-to-lose maniac Russell Westbrook. Marcus Smart is that guy for Boston. This guy is a basketball warrior. He had 13 points, six rebounds, five assists, three blocks and a pair of steals.

When Boston was down three with less than 10 seconds to play, I thought going for the classic "quick two" and getting into a free-throw contest with the Rockets was a death sentence. Turns out, not so much. After Smart found Jayson Tatum (who was again 10-year-vet brilliant) cutting to the hoop for a dunk to cut the lead to one, he drew the first of two consecutive offensive fouls on Harden.

Seriously, Smart could get under the skin of one of those guards outside Buckingham Palace who haven't moved or spoken in years. The man is a Hall of Fame troll. And one hell of a competitor. Here's his second bait job after the Horford hook:

TROLL GOD MARCUS SMART 😈



Smart draws back-to-back offensive fouls on James Harden in final seconds, Horford drains game-winning bucket



Celtics erase 26-point deficit, W pic.twitter.com/FMhX1FnB7c — Wobcus Smart (@World_Wide_Wob) December 29, 2017

There are so many players we could go on for hours about as it pertains to this comeback the Celtics pulled off. Terry Rozier hit a tough contested 3 in the corner and came up with a steal and dunk to cut the lead to four late. Morris was sensational with a number of big buckets. Irving did his clutch-time thing. Tatum is ridiculous. Horford, of course, hit the winner. Harden did his part by settling for contested 26-footer after contested 26-footer.

But Smart's plays at the end tell the story. That's the summary. The Celtics fought like hell. All night. Just as they have done all season. And, most importantly, they won. Just as they have done all season.