'Must-win': With Raptors in early rut, Siakam calls for urgency in upcoming stretch

The Toronto Raptors find themselves in what forward Pascal Siakam calls a "must-win" situation early in the NBA season.

The Raptors have dropped three straight since winning their season opener and face a tall task of winning on the road Wednesday at Milwaukee or Thursday at Philadelphia to avoid extending that skid.

"Obviously we're 1-3, so these are must-win games for us, we've got to win these games," Siakam said Tuesday. "We just got to go out there giving everything that we have to win, that should be the only real concern.

"Obviously really tough, talented teams coming up, it's not going to be easy ... so we've got to just go out there, stay together, work hard and the focus is just winning."

Two of the Raptors three losses have been games they let slip away. Toronto was up 17 with 4:58 left in the fourth quarter before falling to Chicago 104-103 in overtime last Friday. On Monday night, the Raptors were on the wrong end of a late 11-4 run, losing 99-91 to previously winless Portland.

Siakam said the team needs to stick together in fixing its issues.

"I think obviously a couple of games there where I felt like we played well, we played well enough to win but we didn't rebound well enough," he said. "Possessions out there where we played good defence and just didn't finish the possession and gave them second chance opportunities, sometimes even third.

Toronto's more glaring issues have been its halfcourt offence and defensive rebounding.

Head coach Darko Rajakovic said his team needs better pace in getting plays started and in motion in the halfcourt.

The Raptors are dead last in the NBA in scoring, averaging just 99.5 points per game, the only team in the league below 101. On the other hand, Toronto is fourth in