Andrei Kirilenko's face was bright red. His arm was scratched. His eyes were watering. His voice was wavering.

"Just lot of emotion now," Kirilenko said, sitting in his corner locker of the Jazz dressing room following a physically and emotionally difficult 95-86 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.

The Spurs seemed ready to reel off a 150-80 win through the first half Tuesday night in the Delta Center, but the Utah Jazz clawed back to within five, 87-82.

The first technical foul of Andrei Kirilenko's career helped fuel a Jazz comeback effort, aided by a technical foul on Mehmet Okur, a technical on the Spurs' Robert Horry and a flagrant 1 foul against the Spurs Nazr Mohammed, all in a five-minute spree in the third quarter.

"That was the funniest call I've ever seen," said Kirilenko, still breathing hard like he might soon be in need of a paper bag to puff into.

"I was going for the rebound, somebody grabbed me from my arm." It was when he got scratched.

"I said like, 'Eeehhh,' and got technical for it.

"I think every attack could be technical," said Utah's Russian swingman. "Every single possession could be technical because somebody grab your arm, you will say, like, 'Hey.' "

Kirilenko maintained that he did not direct his loud sound at anybody, just made a noise. "You're not cursing. I don't even say anything to him," he said about official Joe Forte, who made the call in front of a seemingly stunned Kirilenko.

"Never. First technical," he said. "They should take a videotape and see it again."

The scratch, he said, "is part of the business. It's all right."

Perhaps Kirilenko could accept the technical more because of the fury it perhaps helped kick off.

"Maybe, it was kind of spark because it was terrible. I've never seen anything like it. You can call every single possession technical cause guys just screaming. Somebody grab arm, and like, 'Aahhww.' Technical. So you can get like 50 technical a game."

Okur felt about the same way, without saying so in so many words. And probably Horry did, too, as the veteran seemed puzzled by his penalty.

"I don't even say a word," said Okur. Yet, "I knew it was coming. I don't even say anything, I just looked at him, 'Wow,' something like this, and he gave me that, so . . . "

Okur said he just let it go, not arguing. "It's all good," he said.

"I think we did much better job second half. I think we fight back. Play with a lot of energy, try to help more each other, execute." The emotion of the technicals helped "little bit."

Jazz co-captain Matt Harpring saw some positives in the calls against Utah. "The technicals kind of fired us up a little bit," he said.

He wasn't sure if that was all that did it. "It was a tough game. It was a rough game out there," and even though the Jazz lost, they seemed to feel they'd given a decent account of themselves in the second half.

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E-mail: lham@desnews.com