Playoff Revelations: Matt Barnes

Playoff Revelations honors playoff players without big names, but who are having a big impact in the postseason.

Looking at Matt Barnes' NBA travel log, you'd assume he's not a very good player. He didn't get one minute of playing time the year Philadelphia picked up him along with Chris Webber. (Philly was not exactly good that year). He got cut from a 2005-06 Knicks team that finished with the second-worst record in the league. And upon his return to (still crappy) Philly that year, he logged a whopping 3 points a game.

Barnes didn't have a job in October, openly pleading for training camp invites. Don Nelson bit, Barnes wowed folks with his hustle and range, and ended up starting 23 games for the Warriors. (SAC TOWN'S FINEST!)

Now, he's a seventh man of sorts, providing surprisingly good rebounding and fairly potent scoring as well as the most distinctly frightening mohawk in man's history.

His headsy runout followed by fourth-quarter dagger over Dirk was the perfect example of what Barnes can do for Golden State. A very poor and somewhat thuggish man's Robert Horry, perhaps? The balance of this series will tell us.