By Michael Wallace
ESPN.com
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CHICAGO -- After a sluggish first half, replete with turnovers, late defensive rotations and miscues that left the Chicago Bulls tied at the intermission with the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, Derrick Rose decided it was time to step up.

The league's MVP felt responsible for his team's sporadic play and needed to be held accountable.

"Just by nature, I'm quiet," Rose said. "But being in this position, being the point guard, being one of the leaders on this team, you have to talk a little more."

So Rose got the undivided attention of his teammates in the locker room and spoke up.

"I told them it was me," Rose said as he relayed the message he gave the team at what proved to be the most pivotal point of Sunday night's 103-82 victory over the Heat. "Careless turnovers. I'm the point guard. I have to do way better."

LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the Heat didn't know it. But it was at that time -- halftime, tied at 48-48 -- when the game changed from one that was hotly contested, intense and competitive to what would eventually become a statement-making rout.

Rose's halftime accountability session was the step-back-and-breath moment that jump-started Chicago. The Bulls went into the locker room with nine turnovers. They committed only one the rest of the game. Rose's talk was the only time the Bulls might have been out of character the entire night.

Fueled by their top-rated defense, their seemingly endless depth, their relentless energy and their uncomfortably vocal catalyst, the Bulls walloped the Heat and established just why the path to the NBA Finals in the East must run through Chicago.

The Bulls thoroughly took over the game in the second half by outscoring the Heat 55-34, knocking down 7 of 14 shots from 3-point range and pounding their way to a 19-6 advantage in offensive rebounds that led to a 31-8 edge in second-chance points.

Team Toughness blew out Team Talent.

Chicago's hustle dominated Miami's hype.

In setting a definitive tone at the start of this series, the team that missed out on the biggest three players in free agency last summer overwhelmed the squad that landed them.

When Oprah takes over the United Center for Monday's farewell show, she's going to have a tough time following the week's opening act in that building.

"You have to give credit where credit is due," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said in assessing the damage the Bulls inflicted on Sunday night. "They did what they normally do. We took it on the chin ... virtually in all the effort areas. We got away from things we normally do. We went a little sideways from a lot of those effort battles that we surrendered."

It's never a good sign when there are words such as "surrendered" are tossed around at any point this deep in the playoffs, let alone in Game 1 of a series with so much at stake.

But clearly, the Bulls' aggressive play put them in position as the team that advanced its agenda. Meanwhile, the Heat were the squad that retreated into what will be three days of internal adjustments, media scrutiny and lingering concerns about easily their worst loss in these playoffs.

At the same time, the Bulls will try to bottle the formula that led to victory without becoming intoxicated by their Game 1 success in a series in which all they've done so far is hold serve.

"It's an important win," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. "For us, we want to go step by step. So we don't want to feel too good. We know there's things we have to clean up. For the most part, our team has done a very good job all year with their approach. Each day, they concentrate, they strive for improvement, they study the opponent, and they don't look behind. They're not looking ahead. They're just getting ready for the next step."

That next step comes Wednesday in Game 2.

By then, the Heat hope to regain some of their footing after an opening performance in which James and Wade combined to shoot just 12 of 32 from the field and committed half of their team's 18 turnovers that led to 22 Chicago points.

The fact that James and Wade struggled against a Thibodeau-designed defense shouldn't be considered an aberration. Actually, it should be more of an expectation of sorts, considering it was Thibodeau who, as an assistant in Boston the past several seasons, orchestrated the schemes that frustrated James while with Cleveland and wore out Wade in Miami before those free-agent reinforcements arrived.

Now, Thibodeau's ultimate postseason challenge after being named NBA Coach of the Year is to concoct a scheme capable of containing them both for the duration of the series. Chris Bosh scored 30 to lead the Heat, but that was offset by the 28 points from Chicago's bench, 28 from Rose, 21 from Luol Deng, 14 from Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah's game-high 14 rebounds.

"That's the biggest thing we worry about," Rose said. "They've got great players. We did a good job of making them see bodies. We were hustling. Tonight, it just went our way."

See, Rose is still working on that communication thing. He's too bashful. It just didn't go the Bulls way on Sunday. Chicago snatched control of the game and never looked back. The Bulls made the Heat look slow, passive, timid and -- frankly -- disinterested at key moments of the game.

Rose's halftime talk with his team provided the emotional boost the Bulls needed in the locker room. But on the court, there were three dunks that defined Chicago's dominance.

You don't see Wade get slammed on the way Taj Gibson posterized him early in the second quarter. If you missed it, check YouTube. Gibson did to Wade what Wade did to Anderson Varejao last season.

And then there was Ronnie Brewer's emphatic baseline dunk on Bosh to put Chicago ahead 80-66. Topping it all off was Gibson's exclamation point dunk on -- what else? -- an offensive rebound in the final seconds of the game.

"We took a beating tonight," Bosh said.

Yep, especially on the boards.

But this wasn't a case of the Bulls doing something they don't normally do. That's who they are. They swarm the perimeter with relentless defense. They attack the paint and rebound with reckless abandon. They keep the scores low and games relatively tight until crunch time.

And then they turn the keys over to Rose the close out games.

That's the formula.

Only this time, Rose remixed it a bit and led with his words before his actions kicked into gear.

"It's only one game," Noah said. "There's a lot of basketball to be played. We will never underestimate the guys in the other locker room."

Don't underestimate the impact of what happened in the Bulls' locker room Sunday night, either.

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