The Atlanta Hawks are entering their series against the New York Knicks as underdogs, and Jonathan Kuminga is being cast as the player who could change that. The Knicks have won four of the last five meetings between the teams, and they finished fifth in net rating this season, a profile that leaves Atlanta little margin for error.
That is why the conversation around the Hawks keeps coming back to the same idea: one rotation player can tilt a playoff game. Atlanta has lived that before. In the 2020-21 playoffs, the Hawks faced a Philadelphia 76ers team that was fifth in net rating while Atlanta was 11th, yet the Hawks made rotation changes to exploit weaknesses and stay alive in the series.
Danillo Gallinari was one of the reasons that worked. He scored 21 points in Game 4 of the first round and shot 44.9% from deep in the Sixers series while taking almost five threes a game. The lesson from that run is the one Atlanta is trying to apply now: in a short series, the right bench scorer does not just support the plan, he can become the plan.
Jonathan Kuminga fits that role because he has already shown he can handle playoff pressure. He scored 20+ points in three straight games against the Minnesota Timberwolves, including a 30-point performance in Game 3. He also stepped up for Golden State when the team was dealing with a Steph Curry injury, which is the kind of stretch that can change how a coach uses him.
But Kuminga’s track record is not a straight line. He struggled to earn the trust of Warriors coach Steve Kerr, and he did not play much in the Rockets series before the Minnesota series. Even so, he has real playoff experience, including 26 other playoff games in which he broke 20+ minutes twice. That uneven history is part of the appeal for Atlanta: the Hawks do not need perfection, only a player who can swing a night when the game tightens.
That is the pressure facing Atlanta now. The Knicks have been better in the matchup, the numbers favor New York, and the Hawks know from their own recent history that rotation changes matter most when the rest of the series looks fixed. Kuminga is being asked to be the lever again.
