Jokic: 'We didn't deserve more', Denver knocked out in the first round
The Nuggets fell 4-2 in the series to the sixth-seeded Minnesota; Jokic posted 28 points, nine rebounds and ten assists in the final game.
After the final buzzer in Minneapolis, Nikola Jokic sat down on the bench, clasped his hands behind his head and stayed that way for almost two minutes. Team-mates came up to him, one patted him on the shoulder, another offered him a towel, but the Serbian just stared straight ahead. Then he got up, shook Anthony Edwards’s hand and walked to the locker room. That is how the 2025-26 play-off story of the Denver Nuggets ended, already in the first round, the earliest exit for Jokic’s generation in Colorado since 2020.
The Minnesota Timberwolves, sixth seed in the West, won the series 4-2 against the third-seeded Denver. Game 6 they settled 110-98 at their own arena, according to Sky Sports reports. One stat says everything: the series margin averaged just ten points, but the Wolves won the clutch minutes three times to Denver’s two.
What sank Denver?
The aerial impression is that the difference was in the wing and the flanks, not at centre. Jaden McDaniels, the 26-year-old Minnesota forward, scored 32 points with ten rebounds in the decisive Game 6, the best play-off performance of his six-year career. On the other side, Aaron Gordon, who had been Denver’s key perimeter defender, played the series with a hamstring tightness and barely managed 25 minutes a game.
Jokic himself had no complaint about his own play. In Game 5, where Denver pulled the series back to 2-3, he posted a triple-double with 27 points, 16 assists and 12 rebounds. In Game 6 he had 28 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds, plus a block, as CBS Sports reported. But as in the 2024 finals series against the LA Lakers, the problem was the second and third scorer, not the first.
Head coach Michael Malone said at the post-match press conference that “there are no excuses” and that the summer will be a time for “serious introspection”, carried by Outlook India. Jokic, in the press zone, was brief: “We didn’t deserve more, they were better in a few moments that decide a series.” Without melodrama, without accusations, without leaving the door open for the locker-room stories around Jamal Murray that had started circulating in winter.
What next, and is there a window for another title?
The Western Conference Finals are between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs. That means Denver is now looking up at two teams that are younger, more aggressive, and in an explosion of growth. Sports Illustrated writes that Jokic is “running out of time for another title”, since he is already 31 and this was the sixth season since his 2021 MVP.
The operational problems are well known: the salaries of Murray and Porter Jr take up 70 per cent of the cap, and general manager Calvin Booth said in March the summer would have to be “creative”. In practice that means one of those two will most likely move on. Before that, the draft on June 26 and free agency on July 1 will give the first picture of where the team is heading.
The next thing we are watching for is whether Jokic in June will report to the Serbia national team for the EuroBasket 2026 preparations. Head coach Svetislav Pesic said back in February that he is counting on the Denver centre. Jokic’s next press conference upon arrival in Serbia is expected in mid-June.
I will add personally that, if any foreign commentator brings up the “fatigue” of Jokic after six years of ten-month NBA seasons plus international duty, we shouldn’t hold it against them. But inside the Serbia national team locker room that complaint has never been a topic. Jokic in every interview after the 2024 Paris Olympics has said the national team comes first, no excuses. This summer that means that, if he is physically ready, he will most likely be at EuroBasket in Latvia and Poland from August 27 to September 14.
On the other side, Denver in June will have to make a tough decision about coach Malone. His contract runs until the summer of 2027, but a first-round play-off exit for an organisation of this format is, as a rule, the start of a discussion about change. Owner Stan Kroenke has not yet spoken publicly.
