Here’s a fun fact for you: The Atlanta Hawks’ starting five, which had the second-best plus-minus of any five-man unit in the NBA during the regular season, entered the work week with the worst plus-minus of any five-man unit in the 2026 NBA playoffs.
That seems kind of odd, considering the Hawks head into Tuesday’s Pivotal Game 5™ against the New York Knicks knotted up at two games apiece, having outdueled Jalen Brunson and Co. in crunch-timetwice in the past week. It’s true, though, and it’s not the result of one frigid run during a blowout or anything. The lineup of Jalen Johnson, CJ McCollum, Onyeka Okongwu, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Dyson Daniels was outscored by three points in Game 1, by six in Game 2, by seven in Game 3, and by four in Game 4, totaling a big ol’ minus-20 in 62 total minutes across four games.
That works out to a -13.7 net rating for the series. Which is sub-Wizards and Nets territory. Which is, y’know, Not Where You Want To Be.
And yet: Atlanta has taken two games off the favored Knicks despite its starting lineup rarely clicking, and returns to Madison Square Garden with reason to believe it can win what is now a three-game sprint to Round 2. One big reason why: the play of Jonathan Kuminga, whom the Hawks added at the trade deadline after things pretty spectacularly fell apart in Golden State, and who has proven to be an absolute demon in transition, making New York pay for every half-step delay in getting back, and a hot knife through butter rolling to the rim off a high ball screen, detonating in the paint.
Kuminga’s physicality can play up in the postseason; he’s a credible threat to attack smaller defenders on mismatches, bully-balling them into the post or overwhelming them on the offensive glass, and can earn himself trips to the foul line with that advantage and aggressiveness. He’s also shown he can move smartly off the ball, making himself a release-valve outlet and putting himself in position to attack a scrambling defense; on defense, he’s proven capable of scaling up to bang with Karl-Anthony Towns while still moving well enough to stick with New York’s guards on switches.
“He made some plays offensively that were great, but I think you could just feel the way he competed on the defensive end,” Hawks head coach Quin Snyder said after Atlanta’s Game 2 victory in New York. “It was a huge lift for us, just his physicality — you know, the way he defended the ball, the way he got to the glass, guarded Towns at times, and on the offensive end, got us a few big buckets, too.”
Kuminga’s play in Games 2 and 3, particularly, provided the kind of showcase for which the former lottery pick clamored during his tenure in Golden State: the opportunity to impact games of consequence under the bright lights. His willingness to do it by embracing some of the less glamorous aspects of the game — sprinting the floor, fighting for deep position, battling on the glass, setting screens, communicating and recovering on defense, doing it all off the bench — offered a rebuke to the conceit that he ultimately just wanted a starting job and the freedom to take whatever shot he wanted.
“Jonathan’s just been all-in,” Snyder told reporters after Game 3. “Are you prepared to sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed on a given night in a playoff game? Whatever that looks like. Is it shots? Is it minutes? Is it rotations? He’s embraced that.”
The issue comes, though, when that aggressive pursuit of making an impact revs too far into the red. When the hard drives and attacking mentality produce off-balance runners, loose handles and contested pull-ups; when the game that can look like a hot knife through butter starts to more closely resemble a dull, cold blade.
That is not some grave sin! Most players see their effectiveness wax and wane in the postseason. That a 23-year-old seeing real playoff minutes for just the second time — Kuminga played just 199 minutes across his first two postseasons with the Warriors, and re-entered Steve Kerr’s rotation in earnest last spring only after Stephen Curry pulled up with a hamstring injury in Game 1 against Minnesota — would experience some valleys to go along with his peaks is par for the course.
That variance, though, has particularly major stakes in a series where Snyder’s rotation really only goes about six-and-a-half-deep. (The only non-Kuminga Atlanta reserve playing at least 10 minutes per game is Gabe Vincent; the veteran guard’s getting 14.1 minutes of tick per night.)
Kuminga has the biggest on-court/off-courtswing of any Hawk playing real minutes in this series. In the Hawks’ two victories, he has scored 40 points on 62% shooting, with Atlanta winning his minutes by 13 points. In their two losses, he’s totaled 18 points on 35% shooting, with Atlanta losing his minutes by 14 points.
It’s not quite as simple as, “When Kuminga plays well, the Hawks win, and when he doesn’t, they don’t.” But in a series where the Hawks’ margin for error has been small — and to at least some degree dependent on the Knicks’ often maddening tendency to either take their foot off the gas or shoot themselves in said foot — it’s noteworthy that Kuminga’s ability to provide a spark of shot creation and physicality has been one of the big bellwethers in this matchup through four games.
The Hawks need Kuminga as an alternative option to provide more scoring punch than Daniels. In the absence of injured backup center Jock Landale, they need him to be able to slot in and guard up, either to spell Okongwu or to help him when the Knicks go to their two-big looks with Towns and Mitchell Robinson.
They need him to provide an auxiliary source of off-the-dribble force and rim pressure, especially as New York extends its defense to try to close off the paint:
They need him to make quick, smart decisions, to knock down the open 3s he gets, and to be able to stay engaged and play his way through struggles. And after the Knicks redoubled their physicality and intensity to get even in Game 4 — Snyder credited Josh Hart, in particular, after the game for the way he “guarded everybody” — they need Kuminga to hit the ground running when he checks in to shift the margins back in their favor.
“More than anything, from the start of the game, their physicality bothered us,” Snyder said after Saturday’s loss. “We didn’t do the things we needed to do to counter that.”
To some extent, Kuminga represents those things: the Hawks’ best chance of matching the Knicks’ physicality and intensity, the battle to value possessions rather than squandering them, and the fight to build momentum instead of succumbing to inertia. When he lapses on the details and isn’t creating great looks at the rim, Atlanta can continue to struggle. If he’s locked in from the jump, though, a Hawks team that has already proven it can win at MSG can absolutely steal another game — and with it, potentially, the series.
“Just as long as I go out there and do what I gotta do to help us win,” Kuminga said after Game 2. “That’s all that really kinda matters.”
