Kyrie Irving Praises Kemba Walker: 'Torches Us Every Time ... It's No Surprise'

Kemba Walker went off in the fourth quarter in the Charlotte Hornets' 124-117 win over the Boston Celtics on Saturday, scoring 18 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter. After the loss, Celtics star Kyrie Irving spoke about Boston's inability to slow Walker down. 

"It's one-on-one, pride," he said of defending the Hornets All-Star, according to ESPN.com. "Down the stretch, try to come in and help as much as possible. We should have probably trapped him a little bit more, like every team does in the league. But we didn't. Torches us every time we play him. So it's no surprise."

The Celtics' third consecutive loss kept them a game back of the Indiana Pacers for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference and four games behind the Philadelphia 76ers for the third seed with just nine games remaining.

It was a game the Celtics should have put away, but they allowed the Hornets to come back from an 18-point fourth-quarter deficit, led by Walker's heroics. The C's offense, meanwhile, completely stalled down the stretch, scoring just twice in 20 possessions to close the game.

2-pt Kemba Walker

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"Obviously, when you lose an 18-point lead, there is a lot of things that go wrong," head coach Brad Stevens said. "I thought they did a good job of chipping away at it. [And] we did everything that the book is written on to lose a game that you are up 18 at that point."

"This game was over in the beginning of the fourth quarter," Irving added. "We took our foot off the gas pedal, got it to a five-point game, and momentum shifted from there."

For the 43-30 Celtics, that level of frustration has become a running theme.

For all the talent the Celtics have, the team has struggled to come together. Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward and Terry Rozier have been asked to come off the bench, and second-year man Jayson Tatum has needed to take on a smaller role offensively with Irving back.

Tatum, Brown, Rozier and Al Horford led the Celtics to the Eastern Conference Finals with Irving and Hayward hurt last season. This season, however, getting all of those pieces to coexist has proved trying for Stevens.

The Celtics have the talent to beat just about anyone, but battling to earn the fourth seed over the Pacers sans Victor Oladipo isn't what the team or its fans would have envisioned coming into the season.