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\u201cJonathan has just been all in, whatever that looks like on a given night,\u201d Atlanta head coach Quin Snyder told reporters after Game 3. \u201cI think the biggest thing he\u2019s done is he\u2019s just defended. Certainly, there\u2019s been some plays on the offensive end that you can point to. But I think that\u2019s been the impact that he\u2019s had on our group\u00a0\u2014 another guy that\u2019s in there competing and defending.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Of course, Kuminga flashed the upside he\u2019s shown in the playoffs with Golden State, but he couldn\u2019t land a consistent role\u00a0\u2014 catching a month\u2019s worth of DNPs at head coach Steve Kerr\u2019s discretion before he was traded with Buddy Hield for Kristaps Porzingis\u00a0\u2014 despite the team\u2019s dearth in athleticism. The Warriors had the fewest dunks in the NBA in 2025-26 with 226, 29 fewer than the Boston Celtics and 62 fewer than Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n
One of the best athletes in the NBA, Kuminga had 138 dunks in 2023-24 when he played a career-high 74 games. Outcome with the Warriors notwithstanding, he gave them something they didn\u2019t replace: above-the-rim activity, twitchy first-step, two-way quickness and defensive versatility on the wing and in the frontcourt.<\/p>\n
As soon as Kuminga was healthy for Atlanta, Snyder cemented him into his rotation, deepened with wings who play up-tempo in a more traditional halfcourt offense. In 16 regular-season games, he averaged 22.1 minutes, 12.3 points (47.6% shooting, 34.6% 3-point shooting), 5.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists, winning his minutes by 100 points.<\/p>\n
Consistency can build confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very comfortable sacrificing for whoever, whenever and however,\u201d Kuminga told reporters after Game 3. \u201cThat don\u2019t faze me as long as I go out there and help us win and just be a winner.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Kuminga is averaging 26.6 minutes, 14.2 points (49.1% shooting, 19% 3-point shooting) and 3.6 rebounds this postseason. In a Game 2 win at Madison Square Garden, he had 19 points, four rebounds and two steals, effectively guarding All-Star big man Karl-Anthony Towns for significant stretches. Three days later in a Game 3 win, while again guarding Towns at key junctures, he had 21 points, four rebounds and a steal, doubling All-Star guard\u00a0Jalen Brunson to force a giveaway in the closing seconds.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s guarded across the lineup, attacked in rhythm and given the Hawks a jolt with his two-way play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s really taken our team to another level, especially on both ends,\u201d Hawks wing Jalen Johnson told reporters Thursday postgame. \u201cJust him constantly playing with physicality, playing with force, it makes him very hard to guard. He\u2019s been doing a good job of that, and hopefully he continues to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s been a perfect playoff series for Kuminga, who remains streaky with his 3-point shot\u00a0\u2014 following the wins with 7-of-20 combined shooting (1-of-11 from 3-point range) in back-to-back losses. The Knicks have leaned on Brunson and Towns\u00a0\u2014 and their pedigree and star power\u00a0\u2014 and physical play from their trio of wings, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart, to regain control against the youthful Hawks.<\/p>\n
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Still, it\u2019s been\u00a0a positive series for Kuminga, who\u2019s applying what he learned with Golden State.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was in a not so great situation,\u201d\u00a0McCollum said. \u201cNow he\u2019s found a happy home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atlanta Hawks forward Jonathan Kuminga (0) shoots against New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson, left, during the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7000,7009,101,103,102,104,106,105,127,13340],"class_list":["post-294540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}