Erik Novales

The Anaheim Arsenal lost to the Utah Flash earlier tonight, 102-90, in a game that was seemingly interrupted by a whistle every 30 seconds or so. There were tons of technical fouls called (some of which were unjustified, in my opinion — the most egregious one being a technical foul on the Arsenal after a Flash player refused to give up the ball following an offensive turnover), and a few close fouls that really took the wind out of the Arsenal’s sails in the 3rd. Unfortunately, the box score doesn’t seem to list the technicals. There was a stretch of five or six offensive possessions in a row in the 3rd that were stopped on Arsenal fouls or turnovers — pretty brutal.

Notable tidbits:

• Utah’s Kevin Kruger shot 1-for-7 yet wound up scoring 17 points, thanks to 15-of-16 shooting from the free throw line. I think he must have taken something like six or seven technical free throws…
• The Arsenal were without the services of Marcin Gortat, who was recalled to the Magic. Gabe Pruitt was back with the Flash after a cup of coffee with the Celtics, but he didn’t get a huge amount of PT.
• There was a huge disparity in assists (21 for Utah versus only 8 for the Arsenal), which surprised me as I didn’t think that Utah’s ball movement was that much better than Anaheim’s.
• Clipper Darrell was there at the start of the game, but didn’t stick around for some reason. Perhaps the Bat-Signal was lit?

Once again I got moved up to courtside (along with my former coworker Adam), which was a nice upgrade. At one point, a ball skipped out of bounds, hit my drink in the cupholder to my right, and flipped it over into the cupholder on my left with only minor splashing — pretty funny!