3 Christmas presents the Raptors hope to find under their tree

2. A better defensive attitude

The Raptors were struggling on the offensive side of the floor early in the season, but they were able to pull off some very surprising upsets thanks to a solid defense that looked poised to carry over the strong results from last season. As the season has progressed, the stats have gotten worse.

Toronto has fallen all the way to 18th in the league in points per game, effectively canceling out whatever improvements they have made as a club on the offensive side of the ball. Pat Delany, the team's No. 1 assistant, has taken a commanding role in terms of constructing the defense, but the results haven't been there.

The Toronto Raptors need to get better on the defensive end.

While the Raptors need to score points to compete in this league, the fact that a roster that is largely the same as it was in 2022-23 (when it was built as an unapologetically defense-first team), yet has regressed so rapidly, is a bad look for this brand new coaching staff.

Despite Masai Ujiri's Bob Cratchit levels of optimism in this team's ability to eventually coagulate into one of the most feared units in the league, it becomes hard to see a path to any sort of success playing like this. Even a slight improvement would be a tremendous boost for the team.