Giannis Antetokounmpo sized up Nikola Jokic, took one dribble, and launched a 3-pointer in the face of the Nuggets’ star big man.

Antetokounmpo drilled it, cutting Denver’s lead to three points with two minutes remaining in Monday night’s duel of arguably the NBA’s top two European players.

The Nuggets pulled away from the Bucks for a 113-107 win on Monday night at Ball Arena, but the message from that game was clear: Just like road games earlier this month in Boston and Philadelphia, this latest matchup between Denver and Milwaukee could be an NBA Finals preview.

“It’s always good to play against the best players in the world,” Antetokounmpo said. “It shows you what you’re built of. Playing against a guy like Nikola, you have to bring your ‘A’ game. You cannot mess around. Whenever I have an opportunity to be in a game like that, I love it.”

If not for Jamal Murray’s ACL injury back in 2021, who knows? Maybe Bucks-Nuggets would’ve been the NBA Finals matchup in that season when Antetokounmpo led Milwaukee to just its second championship, taking down the Suns in six games.

Denver has long talked about that brief 10-game stretch after the Aaron Gordon trade and before Murray’s injury as the time it realized the current core of Jokic, Murray, Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. was capable of winning a championship. The Nuggets just had to wait two years for that to be proved true.

Now, as Michael Malone’s team chases back-to-back titles, the Bucks could be the team waiting for them in the Finals.

Bucks-Nuggets was a popular preseason Finals pick, especially after Milwaukee acquired Damian Lillard. But for a while this season, it looked like the Bucks weren’t a team capable of holding up their end of that bargain.

Despite spending much of the season to date with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, there were questions about how the team, particularly defensively, could hold up in the playoffs. The Bucks have been in the bottom half of the NBA in defensive efficiency all season and have needed heroic performances from the likes of Antetokounmpo and Lillard to pick up close wins.

Everything came to a head last week when, after back-to-back losses at home to the Cavaliers, the Bucks fired first-year coach Adrian Griffin after just 43 games.

In came veteran coach Doc Rivers, who sits in the top all-time in wins in NBA history and coached his first game with the team on Monday.

The results were instantaneous, as a Milwaukee team that recently gave up 248 points over the course of two games against the listless Pistons was suddenly a competent defensive team at the home of the defending champions.

“I told our guys, ‘Anyone who told you you couldn’t play defense, lied,’” Rivers said.

Sure, Rivers has a lot of catching up to do over the course of the next 35 games before the postseason. Any team, let alone one with championship aspirations, makes a move like this midseason, there will be growing pains, and they know that.

“Coaching staff got to have patience with the players, players got to have patience with the coaching staff, but I feel like, for the first game, it was good,” Antetokounmpo said. “We came right out of the gate, played good basketball, moved the ball. Defensively, we were good. We made them make tough shots.”

But the signs were there in the first game under Rivers that the Bucks might just be the team everyone thought they could be coming into the season.

The NBA certainly couldn’t ask for a better Finals matchup than Antetokounmpo and Jokic — winners of four of the last five MVPs and the two faces of the latest influx of European talent in the league.

Antetokounmpo would certainly be up for it.

“How many times can you say (that) you played against the best players in the world and went head-to-head with them?” Antetokounmpo said. “I try to thrive in those moments, as much as I can, and learn as much as I can.”

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) drives past Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) Monday in Denver.

the associated press