Wojnarowski: Rockets G Patrick Beverley Suffers Torn Meniscus In Right Knee

Adrian Wojnarowksi of Yahoo Sports reports that Houston Rockets guard Patrick Beverley has suffered a torn meniscus in his right knee and that the injury could be season-ending.

Beverley, 25, will get a second opinion on the injury soon, sources said, and then it'll be determined whether there's possibly a rehabilitation process that could expedite his return before the end of the NBA playoffs, sources said.

Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle reports that Beverley is officially out indefinitely.

"He has a torn meniscus, we're not 100 percent sure how bad it is or what action we will take," his agent Kevin Bradbury said. "We're going to get to the docs and determine what's best for Pat and for the organization. We should have some clarity early next week.  I would say out indefinitely until we know more."

The Portland Trail Blazers (No. 5 seed) would match up with the Rockets (No. 4 seed) if the playoffs began today. Portland is currently one game up on the Golden State Warriors (No. 6 seed).

Earlier this month, Beverley and Blazers guard Damian Lillard engaged in a little back-and-forth following a Rockets victory in Houston.

After the game, Lillard offered these thoughts to Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com...

"It's irritating," Lillard told CSNNW.com. "But I was locked into the game to be one hundred percent honest with you. It's irritating that he's doing all that little stuff like flopping, tying you up and all that for the whole game. But I don't really get caught up in that. It's whatever."

Lillard also had this to say in videotaped comments.

"You've got somebody out there who wants to try to be bumping and doing little slick stuff. I'm not going to buy into it but I'm almost not going to let it fly. I'm going to say something. That's what he does. I don't really care for that. I'm not just going to let somebody be all in my chest and do all this extra stuff. That's not basketball. Everybody knows what he does to get under people's skin."

In response, Beverley gave his take to The Matt Thomas Show on SportsTalk 790 AM in Houston. Quotes via Dan Feldman at Pro Basketball Talk (I added a few)...

"Damian Lillard whines. So, I'm not a big fan of that. I don't go out there and try to start fights with anybody. I go out there and play my game. That's what I do. I don't go out there and try to hack people. I don't go out there and do that. Prior to this game he was shooting 29 percent against me. That's a credit to our team defense and what we're doing. We don't go out there and try to hurt people, we don't go out there and try to hack people. We go out there and be aggressive on defense and that's what gets us stops.

...

"I don't care what he says. You're a grown man. You're a professional basketball player - professional first. He fouled out before I did.

...

"You always push and shove, and that's basketball. I don't know how other people were raised, but that's basketball. That's how you grew up playing, battling. You get pushed down. You get back up. You battle the next guy. You should enjoy the competition. No one is going out there to hurt someone, and I was kind of offended the way that he was talking. I'm a positive person. I usually don't say anything about anything, but if I feel that something is not right, I'm definitely going to mention about it. And the things that he was saying yesterday really bothered me. I played against all the other top point guards, all the other All-Star point guards, and it was nothing but praise. 'Patrick pushes me, Patrick plays hard, he forces me to better my game. Patrick does this.' He whines and says that I'm pushing and all that. I just wanted to get that off my chest."

Without Beverley, the Rockets will turn to Jeremy Lin to run things. Houston traded third-string point guard Aaron Brooks to the Denver Nuggets at the trade deadline.

Beverley, a 2009 second-round pick, was involved in a play in which Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook suffered a season-ending knee injury during the 2013 playoffs.

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter