In spite of all that context, the Nuggets haven’t played a game in Europe during Jokic’s peak. Their win in London occurred less than a month after Malone first inserted Jokic into the starting lineup. Abu Dhabi is the closest they’ve been to Serbia as a team since Jokic started collecting trophies.

The second of two exhibition games played by Boston, both ball clubs looked sharper than they did facing one another in their first game of the preseason last Friday.

In their second preseason game in Abu Dhabi, Jaylen Brown scored 21 points and Jayson Tatum had 17 as Boston easily defeated Denver.