“Obviously we have the personnel for it, so it’s just a matter of old habits and trying to break them and get into some of the stuff that the new coaching staff likes to do,” Pascal Siakam said during the team’s just completed 2-2 road trip. “I think guys are buying into it. We have the personnel to play defence, so as long as we get after it, we have energy, no matter what we do out there, we have a good chance on defence.”

The raw numbers may not mean that much this early in the season but there are trends emerging — OG Anunoby remains among the league leaders in deflections — and, anecdotally, the Raptors are not getting burned nearly as often as they did last season. They don’t switch as much and they don’t apply ball pressure everywhere on the court for every possession.

“We’re trying defensively to make teams beat us over the top, shoot contested tough shots off the dribble, over us, and not necessarily gamble and chase everybody off the line non-stop,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said Monday.

“Switching is definitely something that we’re going to do and we will need to do more. It’s just how we’re doing it. How are you executing it? Knowing personnel, not everybody’s the same … Sometimes you need to just contain and make players shoot over you.”

There is room for improvement. The Raptors are in the bottom third in opposing team’s field-goal percentag