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The Chicago Bulls declined to celebrate after a needed Game 1 victory (Video)

The Chicago Bulls declined to celebrate after a needed Game 1 victory (Video)

To say that the Chicago Bulls take their direction from coach Tom Thibodeau is an understatement. Whether the team is flying high under MVP-level Derrick Rose, battling it out with a Rose-less batch of scrappers, or the current combination of both routines, the Bulls won’t dance. Don’t ask ‘em.

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Ask anyone in the Chicago locker room, and they’ll tell you they performed as expected in winning Game 1 of the team’s Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Yes, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving still suit up for the Cavaliers, but the Cavs were without Kevin Love and J.R. Smith and at the very least a competitive go is to be expected.

Following the win, via Uproxx, they acted as expected:

Outside of a slim handshake between assistant coach Adrian Griffin and Taj Gibson and Kirk Hinrich scratching the only part of his body that isn’t wrapped in protective gear, that’s not a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ after stealing home court advantage from the team that most picked to come out of the Eastern playoff bracket this year.

You could take this as yet another instance of the Rose and Thibodeau-led Bulls epitomizing the Sainted Right Basketball Way, but while the Bulls do deserve to be proud over this win, this truly is the appropriate reaction.

LeBron James can be a slow starter, he’s not always great after long (in this case, seven and a half days) layoffs, and he often has trouble playing from ahead. Working without two starters in Love and Smith that drove the Chicago defense batty during the regular season, the Cavaliers were at a pointed disadvantage, and the Bulls did well to take advantage.

Even if Thibodeau doesn’t want to hear any excuses:

Make no mistake, the Bulls coach is directing that toward his own players, and not Cavalier fans, media, or anyone in that Cleveland locker room kvetching at the loss of Love and Smith. Furthermore, Chicago can’t consider its trip to Cleveland a job well done at this point. In a lot of ways the team was lucky to grab Game 1, and it absolutely has to take Game 2 while working against a Cavalier lineup that could easily blow Chicago out of the water in four consecutive contests.

Cleveland went small in Love’s absence, as expected, starting Mike Miller in a lineup that hadn’t seen a second of court time during the regular season. Miller was barely regarded offensively and torched defensively (the Cavs were outscored by 20 points in the 16 minutes he was on the court), and it’s quite possible that Cavs coach David Blatt will add rebounding terror Tristan Thompson to his starting lineup.

Chicago did well to push LeBron James into one of his infamous afterthought games, contests that see him making the right pass and minding the store with a sound box score line (19 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists), but ultimately letting his team down once the final tallies are counted. Because sports are played to script to an annoying degree, he’ll attempt to not only drop 40 in Game 2, but render both Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose useless on the other end. James has the ability and the energy to accomplish all of this, especially while playing just his sixth game in 26 days on Wednesday.

Don’t think James isn’t aware of this:

"I might have to change my mindset a little bit obviously with Kev [Love] being out," he said. "It's something that we all haven't been accustomed to this year with him being out an extensive period, or one of the Big 3 being out for a long period of time since I had my injury. So, it might be a different mindset for myself and Kyrie [Irving]."

It’s true that Chicago nailed endless open shots in the Game 1 victory – but you also kinda have to still knock shots in even when the defense is lacking, and there are no guarantees that Chicago’s perimeter abilities will carry over to Game 2 even if they’re still afforded those open looks. It’s also true that Pau Gasol had his best perimeter shooting season in years in 2014-15, but you’re still tasking a 7-footer to hit endless 18-foot shots in order to win. That’s never a gimmie.

Meanwhile, Derrick Rose needed 26 shots to score 25 points while playing poor defense at times, Joakim Noah looked miserable offensively in missing all four of his shots (including one point blank lay-up), and Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau failed to find a consistent role for what could be a series-tilting scorer in Nikola Mirotic – the versatile forward played just 2:25 in the win.

It was a win, but the Bulls should have won. And the Cavaliers seemed just a few hair-trigger moves away from coming all the way back for the Game 1 victory.

Cleveland will improve, and Chicago took Game 1 with a series of shots that just tend to scream “unsustainable!” Chicago seems set in its ways, while Cleveland is readying a switch in its pick and roll defense while juggling both the rotation participants and James’ shot allotment.

Sustaining playoff success means anticipating the counter to the counter to the counter, and trying to presume and prepare for your opponent’s expected anticipation of the counter to the counter to the counter. David Blatt might be an NBA playoff neophyte, but he’ll have his moves ready in time for Game 2.

Will the needlessly beleaguered Tom Thibodeau have the temerity to make changes of his own, even if the initial approach was a victorious one?

We know one thing won’t change. No celebratin’, no salutin’, none of that jibber-jabber. It’s always nice to see the Chicago Bulls stay on message.

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Kelly Dwyer

is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!