Knicks' Kevin McCullar Jr. gets call off bench, and he's ready
New York Knicks guard Kevin McCullar Jr. (9) chases a loose ball against Atlanta Hawks forward Onyeka Okongwu (17) during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart) Credit: AP/Mike Stewart
NEW ORLEANS
Mike Brown had plotted out his minutes schedule, a rough draft he creates for every game, and he knew he had a wild card penciled on it. But he kept it to himself until five minutes and 11 seconds into Saturday night’s game in Atlanta.
That was when he called for his first player off the bench — going past Mitchell Robinson and Jordan Clarkson and Tyler Kolek and signaling for Kevin McCullar Jr.
“I knew a possibility was coming because guys were out with injuries,” McCullar said. “I just stayed ready. When my number was called, I was the first one off the bench, kind of caught me off guard a little bit. But I was ready to go in and try to make an impact.”
Only 11 seconds later, he grabbed an offensive rebound, and 36 seconds after that, he recorded an assist on a three-point field goal by OG Anunoby. And he didn’t stop until he’d played 23 minutes — nearly as many as he’d accumulated in his career, now two months into his second season — and scored 13 points, four more than he’d totaled in his career. He also grabbed eight rebounds as the Knicks beat the Hawks, 128-125.
“I don’t know if he knew,” Brown said afterward with a smile. “I didn’t tell him. He was scheduled on my little minutes sheet to come in at the eight-minute mark of the first quarter. I was going to throw him on Trae [Young] just to see what happens.
“Kev’s a young, really good defender, has a great feel on both ends of the floor, but especially that end of the floor. I wanted to give him a chance. I threw him out there a few minutes and he was fantastic. So he just earned more minutes. I didn’t have him down for that many minutes, but he definitely earned those minutes as the game went along.”
With Josh Hart home recovering from a right ankle sprain suffered on Christmas Day and Deuce McBride testing his own left ankle sprain and getting scratched shortly before game time, McCullar had a hint that there was at least a possibility of playing more.
Maybe more importantly, he could see that Brown was willing to experiment with a lesson he learned as an assistant under Steve Kerr with Golden State — putting a young player into an unexpected high-pressure moment and seeing how the player would respond.
So with barely a handful of minutes of mostly garbage time on his resume, McCullar was asked to chase Young around.
It’s not just McCullar. Rookie Mo Diawara got the start in Hart’s place. Kolek, who has become a fan favorite, relieved some pressure on Jalen Brunson by providing another ballhandler in another Brown experiment, playing the two undersized point guards together.
“The way they came in and played is what we needed,” Brunson said. “ . . . Just came in and did their jobs. Actually, they did more than their jobs.”
While these developments have been compared to last season’s team and critics of the previous regime flood social media with insistence that Tom Thibodeau would not have given these players a chance, it’s worth noting that McCullar came to the Knicks as a late second-round pick with medical red flags.
He had a knee injury from his days at the University of Kansas that sidelined him most of last season and left him working his way back into form in the G League. He spent some time around the Knicks and made his debut on March 25.
Hart set a franchise record for triple-doubles in a season that night. McCullar had two points. Hart gave him the game ball.
“For me, that’s an easy decision,” Hart said that evening. “That record is cool and a blessing, but at the end of the day, that record’s going to get broken at some point. . . . Getting your first NBA points, nobody can take that away from you. It’s important that he had that, got the game ball for that.”
On Saturday, Hart was back in New York — where he will remain for all three stops on this road trip — tweeting encouragement to McCullar when he saw him do, well, things that Hart does.
McCullar grabbed four offensive rebounds, and in one sequence, he dived into the Knicks’ bench to save a loose ball, got to his feet, got the ball back and drained a corner three-pointer.
“Yeah, he’s like a big bro,” McCullar said of Hart. “Seeing how his energy is contagious on both ends of the floor. Just tried to go out there and make winning plays like he does.
“I learned a lot [last year]. I was banged up with injuries, but credit to all the guys in the locker room, all our older guys, stayed on me, helped me through my rehab process. Now I’m out here playing minutes. Give credit to the veteran guys in our locker room for keeping us ready and telling us when our opportunity is called to take advantage of it.”
What the Knicks and Brown have shown is that they are open to surprises. When Hart and McBride and Landry Shamet are back, maybe the minutes will be few and the opportunities will be fleeting, but Brown won’t hesitate to take a chance.
“That’s what having a team is about,” he said. “I feel confident in all our guys . . . So we’ve got to go to the next man. We just want guys to give us what they’re capable of. We don’t want them to go outside their box, but we just want them to give us hard minutes the time that they’re on the floor. I thought all our guys did.”
Notes & quotes: Robinson will sit out Monday’s game in New Orleans with left ankle management. McBride is listed as questionable, as he was Saturday.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
