League sources told CBSSports.com on Friday that there are strong indications Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook was injured on the steal attempt by Patrick Beverley of the Houston Rockets. The question is, if that is indeed how Westbrook suffered a lateral tear in his meniscus, did that play even need to happen?

The Rockets had just gone up 42-41 after a dunk by Greg Smith, and the Thunder needed to regroup their players and figure out which points of emphasis to hammer home with the unit on the floor or which adjustments had to be made in order to stop the Rockets from competing with the Thunder. As Westbrook routinely brought the ball up the court and headed toward the hashmark to call the timeout, Beverley had the ambitious thought of jumping the dribble to force a steal before the break in the action could occur.

Was that a dirty play by Beverley? Absolutely not. Was it a reckless play that shouldn't have been attempted? I would say so. 

The argument against condemning Beverley for that play is he was trying to continue to gain an advantage and playing hard. But playing hard doesn't always mean you're in control. The odds of forcing that turnover on a routine timeout call that you see a couple times per game are extremely low. Diving into the dribble like that and banging Westbrook's knee just seems like a dangerous move to make for a relatively unnecessary reason of low consequences.

Beverley explained his part in the play to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: 

You can see the instant pain in Westbrook's reaction and the anger that he felt toward Beverley for attempting a play that probably shouldn't have been attempted. Westbrook's response was to play even harder whenever matched up with Beverley throughout the rest of the game, as he seemed to try to exact revenge against the Houston guard's actions. Was that a wise decision on his part?

We don't know for sure if that collision caused the injury, if it set up the injury to happen after Westbrook continued to play on it or if it had nothing to do with the injury at all. Westbrook's play the rest of the way could have made the injury worse or caused the injury. But with such a key player on a title contender suffering an injury that could derail their title hopes for this postseason, I think it's fair to wonder aloud whether or not Beverley should have even attempted such a potentially dangerous move.

Fair or not, he'll end up taking the brunt of the blow publicly for his part in what is being seen as the play that took Westbrook out of the Thunder's attack. It's unfortunate that such an unnecessary action ended up having such a serious effect on the landscape of the playoffs.