Here’s the solace: It was good for the Bulls to lose Game 5. That loss could actually be their blessing.

See, in this particular team’s brief history together we know one thing: The Bulls have a strong tendency to play bad basketball when they have nothing to lose. They beat Houston in January only to lose to Utah at home the next game; they become only one of two teams all season to beat the Golden State Warriors at home only to lose to the Lakers the next game; they beat the Cavs when LeBron & Co. were the hottest team in the league right before the All-Star break, only to come back from the break and lose to the Pistons; they go up 3-0 on the Bucks only to… you see where this is trending.

It is when they have no choice, when their backs are pushed against the wall and there is no room for comfort, less space to breathe when the Bulls usually rise above the occasion. Playing big after meaningful and significant wins isn’t their style. They -- for some unexplained reason -- get comfortable and “chillax” enough not to play the same way in follow-up games after they’ve shown how great they can be.

Which is why the rationale of them losing Game 5 as a good thing, in their best interest, an absurd benison in disguise, isn’t that absurd. Not being up 3-2 eliminates the luxury for the Bulls to fall back into a feeling of immediate achievement. Leaving them with a two-game, 96-minute minimum reminder that they’ve accomplished nothing yet.

96 minutes. That’s what this “Season of Promise” has now come to. Joakim Noah doesn’t like the use of the term “desperation ball,” but if being down one game to LeBron James in what became a best-of-three series after Sunday’s loss isn’t time to be desperate, no time is.

But the Bulls tend to flourish in times of desperation. Whether they want to own it or not. They don’t miss countless shots around the rim that AAU teams normally make, they don’t have 0-for-12 seven-minute scoring droughts, or go 0-for-9 from 3, they don’t have disastrous 4-for-22 second quarters, or back-to-back second quarters where they score only 20 and 17 points respectively, Derrick Rose doesn’t disappear, Jimmy Butler doesn’t take ill-advised 3s with 17 seconds left on the clock with under a minute left and the game on the line, Aaron Brooks and Kirk Hinrich don’t have plus/minuses of -12 and -7, mysterious injuries seem to not occur, refs don’t eject key players or miss opposing coaches’ cries for timeouts when they have none left. They don’t as a team shoot 39 percent from the field while allowing the other team to shoot above 50 percent. They force kings into at least one turnover.

Normally when the Bulls are pressed against it, everything seems to fall into place. Almost as if they -- or the basketball gods that sometimes watch over them -- like it that way. Which maybe the reason why they won’t enter this game feeling desperate when the 23,000 fans surrounding them will.

Game 6 in this series is not desperation as much as it provides a sense of security that the Bulls like falling into. It works for them. Maybe they just play better and are more focused when the space to relax no longer exists.

At least that’s the hope. Because that space officially disappears when Game 6 tips off.