This Celtics-Warriors NBA Finals will be rife with juicy storylines, from the league’s biggest blue blood to today’s greatest dynasty. But on the court, the single most important matchup will be Golden State’s Steph Curry against Boston’s Marcus Smart.

The deadeye who changed how an entire generation shot right over defenses against the first guard in a generation to earn Defensive Player of the Year. One of history’s best scorers versus one of the only men who’ve ever been able to slow him down — and will need to do so again.

The Warriors are back in their sixth Finals in the past eight years, the first team since Michael Jordan’s Bulls to pull that off. Meanwhile, the Celtics sit tied with the Lakers for the record with 17 titles — and have every intention of claiming the record for themselves.

“I’ve gone from a naive southern kid to a championship starved Bostonian,” Smart said. “I won’t settle for anything less than banner 18.”

Despite the Celtics being underdogs going into Thursday’s Game 1, it’s a very real prospect — but it’ll rely largely on Smart’s defense on Curry.

Boston has the best record of any team against Golden State since Steve Kerr took over the Warriors, at 9-7. Curry is 11-11 all time against the Celtics, much of that due to the stellar defense played against him earlier in his career by Boston’s Avery Bradley. But lately Smart has picked up that torch, turning in a historically great defensive season.

“His strength and his anticipation, he’s got an incredible feel for the game at that end,” said Kerr, before bestowing upon him the most lavish praise a Warrior could think of. “He’s like the guard version of Draymond [Green].

“He’s reading angles, he’s guarding all five positions, if he switches on to a 5 man, he’s so strong, he can hold them off. He’s quick enough to chase point guards around, big enough to guard wings so he can literally guard 1-5 in the modern game. He’s appropriately named, very smart player and really versatile and great, great defender.”

Though Green was Defensive Player of the Year in 2016-17, Smart’s win this season may have been even more impressive. It was the first for a backcourt player since 1995-96, when Gary Payton claimed the award.

And in addition to playing the point and orchestrating Boston’s offense, Smart is going to have to deal with defending the two-time MVP.

It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.

Over his eight-year career, Smart has smothered Curry, holding him to just 29 percent shooting overall when he’s been the closest defender, according to Second Spectrum. And Curry’s astronomical Offensive Rating plummets to 85.0 when guarded by Smart since 2014-15, second-lowest against any player (min. 100 matchups).

“They’re obviously a great team. They’re in the Finals,” Curry said. “They’ve had their group together — have gone through a lot together the last four, five years. They had some success early and figured out how to sustain it, and now they’re here on this stage. It’ll be an amazing test.”

When the teams met on Dec. 17, Curry did pour in 30 points in a Warriors road win at TD Garden. But he was held to 8 of 21 shooting and just 5 of 14 from 3-point range with a half-dozen turnovers.

In the March 16 rematch in San Francisco, Curry had three points on 1 of 4 shooting with four turnovers before being forced out of the game after just 13:40. He suffered a sprained foot when Smart landed on it while diving on the floor for a second-quarter loose ball.

It cost Curry the rest of a regular season, missing the final dozen games.

“He didn’t try to hurt me,” Curry said later. “There’s a certain way that he plays, that I don’t think many other people would have made the play that he did, but I don’t think it was malicious or dirty or trying to hurt me. It’s kind of just a tough situation. Like I said, just the way that he plays. … It’s not like he looked at me and said, ‘I’m trying to hurt that dude,’ so it’s basketball.”