Vintage Derrick Rose Puts Cavs on Heels with Statement Game 1

The Chicago Bulls’ season and their title hopes have always hinged on Derrick Rose.

Remove everything else—other injuries, awkward frontcourt fits, the combustibility of head coach Tom Thibodeau’s relationship with the front office—and it always comes back to Rose. The Bulls were never going to get past the Cleveland Cavaliers, much less make it to the Finals, without the version of Rose that showed up in Game 1 and helped propel Chicago to a 99-92 win and a 1-0 series lead.

From the beginning, this year has been the Bulls’ best chance at winning this matchup. That was true before the Cavs’ disastrous Game 4 against the Boston Celtics in the first round, which cost them Kevin Love for the remainder of the playoffs and J.R. Smith for the first two games of the second round, but it became doubly so when all of those things broke in Chicago’s favor. 

The Bulls needed to capitalize on that vulnerability and take at least one of these two early games to steal home-court advantage and make the Cavs work from a position of weakness. They needed a statement win.

Their statement was heard loud and clear on Monday. And so was Rose’s.

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Rose did a little of everything in Game 1. He knocked down open threes, attacked the rim and looked comfortable from mid-range. He made plays for his teammates and limited himself to just two turnovers. He was never rattled. He finished with 25 points, five rebounds and five assists on 11-of-26 shooting.

One of Rose’s baskets, in particular, sticks out: a three-pointer from the left wing that came after Cleveland switched LeBron James onto him on defense.

All the ill-advised threes that Rose took during the regular season, the ones he rightfully faced so much criticism for taking, served their purpose. All year, he’s been unshaken in his belief that they would start falling. Monday, they did, even when the greatest player in the world was on him.

These moments, these situations were exactly what Rose envisioned for himself at the start of the season. He hasn’t faced a LeBron James team in the playoffs for four years. As soon as word got out this summer that he was healthy and explosive again after his years of knee injuries, everything was building up to this matchup, and this time, Rose’s Bulls might be victorious.

Rose has always been an instinctual player. It’s what made him so electrifying before the injuries, and it’s what made his stretches of vintage play this season so tantalizing.

When he’s stopped to think too much, he’s struggled. He’d probably be the first person to tell you that. Before the first knee injury in 2012, that instinctive style led to a lot of reckless play and ultimately to his career being put on hold for three years. He’s since struggled to find the balance between playing within the flow of the game and letting that lead to bad decisions.

In his first playoff run in three years—and especially against the Cavs—it looks like he’s found it.

Some things will never change with Rose. The air will always be sucked out of a room when he takes hard contact of any kind. That was the case in the closing seconds of Game 1, when he ran into a hard pick by Tristan Thompson and exited with what turned out to be a stinger in his shoulder.

He told CNN's Rachel Nichols in an interview after the game that he’s fine, but his history of recklessness is always going to create that tension. Living with that is just part of the reality of living with Rose in 2015.

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But those minor bumps in the road are nothing compared to what he’s been through the last three years, and that belief he’s held in his own resiliency is becoming contagious now that he’s been delivering on his promises in the playoffs. The assumption when he goes down is no longer “Not again.” It’s “He’ll be OK.”

Regardless of how Rose plays game to game, the place his head is right now is a scary proposition for the Cavs. When he’s locked in, there are few players in the world more dangerous. And right now, he’s as locked in as he’s been since the cavalcade of injuries started three years ago.

Now, the rest of the work begins.

The Bulls won Game 1 on the road, which gives them an advantage the rest of the way. But they still have to beat LeBron James three more times, which is no small proposition for anybody, no matter how well a talented team is striding.

"We know this is going to be a battle," Rose said, per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. "They're a very talented team that wants to go far. We have the same ambition. This is what we've been waiting for the entire year."

James was unremarkable in Game 1, thanks in large part to Jimmy Butler’s defensive efforts, but shutting him down once and shutting him down four times in seven games are two very different tasks. Even having wrestled home-court advantage away from Cleveland, the Bulls still face an uphill climb to reach the conference finals for that reason.

But with this Rose, you have to like their chances just a little bit more.

Sean Highkin covers the Chicago Bulls for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @highkin.