Kyrie Irving Suffers Injury, Criticizes Celtics Defense After Spurs Loss

Kyrie Irving suffered an eye injury during the Boston Celtics’ loss to the San Antonio Spurs on New Year's eve at the AT&T Center with coach Brad Stevens still unsure if the player will miss any of their upcoming games.

The Celtics lost 120-111 to Gregg Popovic’s side to make it 21-15 for the season. They are currently in fifth place in the Eastern Conference and their next four games are at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Dallas Mavericks, Brooklyn Nets and the Indiana Pacers.

Irving suffered a scratched eye when he attempted to win the ball back after missing a 28-foot shot. He was tussling with Spurs guard Marco Belinelli when the incident occurred in the fourth quarter.

Coach Stevens was unsure as to the extent of the injury, but revealed the player will be put on antibiotics in the coming days. Irving revealed it was quite bad when he spoke to reporters post-game, but is certain that he will be alright to play in the upcoming games.

"Kyrie has a scratched eye," Stevens said, as quoted by ESPN. "So he'll have antibiotics for that. I don't know what that means beyond tonight."

"I'm wearing sunglasses, so not too good. I'll be all right, though. [He] smacked the s--- out of me. He just caught me pretty good,” Irving said, speaking to reporters while wearing sunglasses.

Stevens was critical of his team’s defense and admitted that any team that gives up 46 points in one quarter “is going to get beat”. He believes the Spurs physicality played a big part in them overpowering the Celtics in the third quarter.

“Forty-six point third quarter you’re going to get beat,” Stevens said after the game, as quoted on NESN. “They were tremendous. It started with them physically overpowering us, getting to the rim clearly like a mindset of, ‘we’re going to go to the rim and make you stop us from a physical perspective.’ And once we started really sucking in, then they started spraying it all over and making every shot. They did a great job of exposing us throughout that whole quarter.”

Irving also echoed his coach’s comments and admitted that when it comes to getting boards the team have been struggling recently. The Celtics point guard also praised the Spurs’ game plan after they let in 76 points in the second-half, which was the most they have let in in a half this season.

“We have to play twice as hard because we are smaller,” Irving added. “They are just pounding it in going at our bigs. Making Marcus Morris guard fours and Al guard these big fives and you know they’re just shooting and launching at the basket and they’re just getting offensive boards so, you know, most of our lineups are featured with four guards so it makes our job on the boards a lot tougher and it’s been showing over the last few games.”