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TSN Raptors Reporter

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WASHINGTON - The Raptors squeezed in a late afternoon practice session at the Air Canada Centre prior to hitting the road on Thursday.

As they were wrapping up, just over 24 hours before the biggest game of their season, Dwane Casey had a message for his players.

"If you're not going to Washington to compete, don't come out to the airport," he told them. "We'll get you a nice meal somewhere in Toronto at a nice restaurant and you can watch it on television."

"No one stepped forward, so that meant that everyone who gets on the plane is ready to compete."

After dropping the first two games of their opening-round series on home court, the Raptors are in desperation mode heading into Friday's contest. It's not literally a win or go home proposition, yet, but the odds of pulling off a miraculous comeback, should they lose Game 3, are just as bad as you can imagine.

In the history of the NBA playoffs, 110 teams have dug themselves a 0-3 hole. None of them have successfully rallied back to win the best-of-seven series.

"We understand we're pretty much playing with our backs against the wall," said Patrick Patterson. "Game 3 is basically a game that we have. Plain and simple, black and white, we cannot lose Game 3."

"It's a must-win for us," echoed struggling point guard Kyle Lowry. "Going down 3-0 would be very disheartening. One win. That's what we've got to focus on. One win, one game, one possession at a time."

At least off the court, this team hasn't lost its confidence, they're not hanging their heads. On the court however, that's been a completely different story, as the Wizards have pushed them around in just about every way you can think of.

Washington has out-rebounded the hosting Raptors by 30 in the first two meetings, including 14 on the offensive glass. They have doubled, blitzed and pressured Toronto's all-star backcourt of DeMar DeRozan and Lowry, limiting them both and completely taking the latter out of this series. No one else has stepped up enough to make up the difference.

On top of it all, the Wizards have acted the part. They're talking trash and backing it up.

"That's all the game of basketball, whether it's playoffs, whether it's preseason, whether it's a regular season game, whether it's going up against your rival opponent, there's always trash talking," Patterson said. There's always explicit language, there's always pushing and shoving, there's always a physical nature of the game. It's just the competitive part of the game. And we embrace it, they embrace it, if you're an athlete you embrace it."

Now, they have to adopt that mindset and bring it to Washington, where this series could come to a close this week unless the Raptors are able to right the ship.

"It's important that everybody has that swag," Casey said. "I don't mind guys talking [trash], that's part of basketball. If you've got to do that to get yourself going, so be it. But we've got to go out and play with supreme confidence and have that swag on the court."

"It starts when you walk into the building, with your demeanour and your attitude," Patterson added. "Then as the game progresses forward, if you're making shots, if you're playing defence, if you're getting stops then your confidence is going to go through the roof."

Despite the justifiable negatively emanating from the team's frustrated fan base, despite Charles Barkley's proclamation that they're "cooked", the Raptors still believe they can claw their way back. The odds are not in their favour, but it's been done. 16 teams have come back from a 0-2 best-of-seven deficit to win the series (of 261, so about six per cent), but only three of them had dropped the first two at home. The Raptors have thrived under pressure, with their backs against the wall and a chip on their shoulder in the past. They haven't shown much in this series to suggest they're capable of making history this spring, but they haven't lost confidence in themselves.

"Honestly, we could care less what other people say about us, whether it's fans, whether it's critics, reporters, analysts, it doesn't matter," Patterson said. "Had we worried about that, we wouldn't be in the position we are now, especially last year where everyone was doubting us and we were able to turn things around."

"So we just have to realize when they punch us, we can't take steps back. We just have to keep pushing forward."