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Thibodeau fine with benched starters

After leaving Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah on the bench for the entire fourth quarter in the Game 5 win over Atlanta, coach Tom Thibodeau didn’t think he needed to spend any time smoothing over hurt feelings.

Both players seemed upbeat after the game. Thibodeau started by crediting the management team of Gar Forman and John Paxson for bringing in players with strong character.

“They’ve committed to playing as a team and playing for each other,” Thibodeau said Wednesday at the Berto Center. “When one of the bench guys is doing well, they’re very supportive. When the bench guys are sitting over there, they’re very supportive of the starters.”

ESPN commentator Jeff Van Gundy, one of Thibodeau’s coaching mentors, talked about how a coach may have to handle those situations delicately.

“The level of trickiness depends on the attitude of the individual players,” Van Gundy said in a phone interview. “To me, it’s all based on their level of unselfishness.

“But even if they’re completely unselfish, the reason — particularly Boozer, I would say — has been a good scorer in this league is they’ve got ego. And ego’s not a bad thing. You need it to be a good player in this league.”

Thibodeau worked as an assistant on Van Gundy’s staff in New York and Houston. Thursday’s Game 6 is on ESPN, but Van Gundy won’t be working the game.

During 20 years as an NBA assistant, Thibodeau became renowned as a defensive strategist, but one of his greatest strengths might be his rapport with players.

“I was always puzzled by the idea that he was some drone hard-worker,” Van Gundy said.

“That’s the furthest thing from the truth. Yeah, he works extremely hard, like most people. But he’s also a gifted communicator. That’s doesn’t necessarily mean tell everybody what they want to hear.

“Communication, to me, is getting guys to do what’s in the best interest of the team. If you watch them all year, he and his staff have absolutely communicated expertly, because their team has been all about effort and sacrifice. That’s hard to get to on any NBA team.”

On Wednesday, Thibodeau was asked if he noticed the starters on the bench cheering for Taj Gibson, Omer Asik and the rest of the fourth-quarter lineup.

“I see them every day,” Thibodeau said.

“I see how they interact with each other. I see how they work and I see how they’ve been in each game all season long, so it doesn’t surprise me.”