Jokic emphasizes communication, effort as tools to Denver’s resurgence

By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña

Denver Nuggets’ superstar Nikola Jokic opened up regarding the team’s checklist in order to bounce back in the upcoming NBA season.

During the NBA Media Day on Sept. 29, 2025, Jokic sat down with sports reporters from across the world and gladly answered all their questions in a fun 12-minute interview.

When asked about what the team needs if they want to run it back in the playoffs this 2025-2026 NBA season, Jokic’s answer was simple.

Communication and effort.

“Probably the thing that we need to do is to talk more. Communication. And do more effort. Just do the small things,” Jokic said.

Last NBA season, Jokic and the Nuggets lost against the Oklahoma City Thunder in a grueling seven-game series.

What frustrated Jokic the most was not the defeat but how they exited the playoffs.

What was expected to be a mano-a-mano affair turned out to be a lopsided beating, as Oklahoma manhandled the Nuggets, 125-93.

Days after crashing out of the playoffs, Jokic made bold statements that the team lacked a deep bench rotation that hurt them during their postseason campaign.

The Nuggets joined the New York Knicks as the top two teams that barely used heavy rotation involving their second unit and relied more on their starting five until the end of the game.

Through the first two rounds, New York’s bench mob averaged only 10.1 minutes per game, while Denver’s David Adelman had his role players limited to just 11 minutes per playoff game.

“I think we’ve played so long in such a way it’s hard for the guys to step up, especially in the playoffs, especially against two really good teams, the Los Angeles Clippers and OKC,” said Jokic.

“We can’t ask somebody who didn’t play maybe 20, 30 games to jump in and expect them to be good. But it definitely seems like the teams that have longer rotations, a longer bench, are the ones who are winning.”

This season, the entire Denver fan base already has high expectations for their squad after the Nuggets brought back Bruce Brown Jr., one of the members of the championship team that won the 2023 Larry O’Brien trophy.

Aside from Brown, Denver also reloaded and beefed up their pool by signing veteran shooter Cameron Johnson, paint enforcer Jonas Valanciunas, and scoring machine Tim Hardaway Jr.

Jokic and the Nuggets will only have three weeks of training camp left before the NBA season kicks off on October 22, 2025.