Before last night’s game against the Toronto Raptors, Marcus Smart wasn’t interested in mincing words.

Along with throwing his vote toward Brad Stevens as the NBA’s coach of the year, the Celtics point guard took some time to laud himself.

“I’d like to think I’m probably the most competitive rookie in my class,” Smart said.

Then, he went out and backed it up.

The rookie logged nine points, five rebounds and three assists in the Celtics’ thrilling 95-93 victory at the Garden, but his true impact could not be found in the numbers.

Smart, as usual, was ruthless on the defensive end of the floor. Matched up primarily with the Raptors’ Lou Williams, Smart accepted the challenge and paid attention closely to the scouting report on his dynamic counterpart, and the results were apparent.

Williams finished with a team-high 16 points, but he had to work hard to score. as he was 3-of-13 from the floor. It was Smart’s aggressive on-ball defense, which has been on display all season, that did the trick.

Specifically in the third quarter, Smart was disrupting Toronto’s ballhandlers on a regular basis, and it was a major reason why the C’s were able to battle back from a 12-point deficit and gain a three-point lead heading into the fourth.

“I thought he did an unbelievable job defensively, and one of the people in our front office just said that his impact per stat was pretty remarkable tonight, and I think that’s all year,” Stevens said. “That’s 81 games. He’s had a huge impact on making winning plays, and he did again tonight. He kept the ball alive on rebounds, he got steals, he was so active. He was hard to go through. Those guys (Kyle Lowry and Williams) are hard to guard, and to have them go 6-for-20 and 3-for-13 takes a lot of work.”

On the offensive end, Smart’s scoring came at critical junctures.

Smart perfectly executed an after-timeout play to end the first half, streaking from midcourt on a give-and-go and finishing with a monstrous left-handed slam to give the Celtics momentum into halftime. In the third quarter, he anticipated an ill-fated Evan Turner shot, jumping from the far baseline for a put-back, two-handed dunk. Both plays sent the Garden crowd into a frenzy, and the latter brought the C’s back to within one after they fell behind by double digits in the frame.

He wasn’t done, either, as his 3-pointer with 3:32 to go tied the game at 87. Smart helped mount the winning comeback, a testament to a clutch gene that he has developed all season long, just like his total game.

“It’s weird, even the regular season went by faster than I expected it to go,” Smart said. “I don’t really look at myself as a rookie anymore. Those guys might, but I don’t. That comes with games played and the experience of those games.”

And as the playoffs approach with a tough first-round matchup with LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and the Cleveland Cavaliers, that might be just what Stevens and the rest of the Celtics would like to hear from their rookie guard who has seemed to age quickly.