Jonathan Kuminga continues to impress whenever he's on the court.
After his "magnificent" outing in the Warriors' disheartening road loss to the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night, Kuminga followed that up with stellar play defensively in an impressive 123-107 win over the Boston Celtics in a rematch of the 2022 NBA Finals on Sunday night at Chase Center.
"I thought JK was great," Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters after the game. "Just his athleticism and size and strength, to be able to bring him off the bench and put him on either [Jaylen] Brown or [Jayson] Tatum, and then the way he can switch and stay in front of people ...
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"JK has really helped solidify our defense and given us another weapon we can put on the best players on the opponent."
With Andrew Wiggins out with right adductor tightness, Kuminga did his best off the bench to pester Tatum, an MVP frontrunner, on defense in Golden State's win.
Although Tatum averages 30.5 points a game, the 24-year-old had only 18 points on 6-of-21 shooting from the field against Kuminga and the Warriors.
Golden State Warriors
Kuminga's renewed attention to the defensive side of the ball is not lost on Warriors star Steph Curry.
"A focus on defense, a focus on energy and just outworking people, using his athleticism, his God-given abilities, the things that you can control on the court, that's first and foremost," Curry said regarding what stood to him about Kuminga's performance against Boston.
Curry added that Kuminga has developed a lot of confidence within the Warriors' system and conversely is being rewarded for that.
"So I think he's flipped that switch, coach has put his trust in him, putting him out there and he's showing that he's trustworthy in terms of impacting the flow of the game, even in a game like tonight, where he didn't get any minutes in the Finals last year against that team," Curry continued.
"He belonged out there tonight, you can kind of really feel that."
With that in mind, Kuminga reiterated his confidence in his ability to guard anybody in the NBA, especially the opposing team's best player.
"I'm not going to say I'm going to stop them 48 minutes while they're playing, but as long as I help the team to stop whoever's going crazy in the game ... I feel like I did a good job and come out with the win," Kuminga said postgame.
"So, I'm really excited just to go out there and guard every best player -- I feel like I've been doing good and I'm going to keep doing it."
Along with playing stellar defense on whoever he was tasked with guarding, Kuminga also had 14 points, five rebounds, and three assists in 21 minutes off the bench.
The 20-year-old also had a monster poster dunk on Tatum.
Considering how confident the Warriors are in Kuminga's abilities defensively, it would not be outside the realm of possibility to see him in lineups featuring Wiggins, Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson for a defensively savvy group.
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With how he's impressed so far, it will only be a matter of time before Kuminga has a solidified spot in future late-game lineups.