Palace blew a 2-0 lead, with Burnley leading 3-2 at halftime, which they were able to keep hold as a winning scoreline after the break.
"When you defend so sloppy in this eight minutes, we deserve to lose," he said. "We controlled the game, scored nice goals. But then we forgot about the basics.
"About the duels, second balls, defending, complaining about the referee's decision, stopping during play.
"We were still complaining when we concede a goal. Maybe it felt too easy (for us) to be 2-0 up and controlling the game. Then we got punished. In the second-half we tried everything.
"If you throw away the game like we did in these eight minutes, you don't deserve to win. That's why we have to accept it. But honestly, it's very tough today."
The Austrian added, "From the first 30 minutes we can take a lot of positives. We played well, played with a purpose. And I want to play with the purpose to score a goal.
"Today we played much better football than at Brighton. But at Brighton we had the desire and the passion to defend as a team and defend our goal."