OAKLAND – Shaun Livingston knows he lucked out. Never has he felt more fortunate to have Steph Curry as a teammate.
Livingston lost his cool Monday night in Game 4 of the Warriors-Trail Blazers playoff series. After drawing a technical foul for protesting too vociferously when he failed to draw a foul despite being hit on a shot, he chased lead official Scott Foster, blasting his ears with a four-word phrase that ended with a hyphenated expletive.
Foster ejected Livingston with 1:36 left in the half and the Warriors trailing 59-52.
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“I said some things I shouldn’t have said, but I think he was a little quick on the whistle,” Livingston said after shootaround. “It went both ways.
“But I definitely made a mistake. I should have kept my cool. But I did try to go for the technical, the first one – not the second one.”
Livingston was trying to fire up the Warriors while also sending a message to the officials to be more consistent. Tossed for the first time in his 12-year NBA career, he spent the rest of the game in the visitor’s locker room at Moda Center.
““I’m in the locker room thinking about my teammates, not the refs,” Livingston said. “I made a mistake. I put myself before the team in that instance.”
Golden State Warriors
Livingston was making his fifth consecutive start at point guard in Curry’s absence. Curry returned for Game 4, but came off the bench.
The Warriors coaching staff projected Curry would play maybe 25 minutes. He played 37, leading the second-half rally and taking over in overtime as the Warriors came away with a 132-125 win.
“I would have felt like an ass if we had lost,” Livingston said. “You never want to leave your team hanging like that.”