I said that just because otherwise you'd think there'd be dialogue puzzles and such, which you can sneak cutscenes and dialogue and old-school storytelling into. But regardless, it's theoretically possible. And if you can tell a story with just puzzles and exploring, then what's all that other stuff that has been called "storytelling" in this thread?
Andrea, I think everything has narrative substance. Any kind of gameplay forms a story, whether that is a story the designer intended or a story which emerges unexpectedly from the playing. If I wander around a town, you might call it "exploration gameplay for the sake of immersion" but I might call it a setting. If I solve a puzzle, even a very puzzle-y puzzle like in Myst, you might call it "puzzle gameplay" but I might call it a "cerebral plot", like how in the TV show House he'll come up with all sorts of clever solutions to problems. Trying to figure out how things work, that's storytelling. Seeing where things are, that's storytelling. Looking for opportunities, that's storytelling. Everything is storytelling, and whether it's good storytelling or bad storytelling just depends on how it's used.
So what's all the other stuff? Other than puzzles and exploration, there's: interaction with characters, perception of objects, which isn't quite a puzzle in itself, mini-games and cutscenes. These are all types of gameplay (or at least elements of game design), and "story" doesn't need to enter into the list. Story is the macro level, where you look at how everything fits together and see what you're trying to say with it. When we look at the actual structure of an adventure game, we can give it this definition:
Puzzles + exploration + interaction + (optionally) perception
(Minigames and cutscenes are put everywhere, so they don't really need to be in the definition.)
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