ORLANDO, Fla. _ Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton are friends.
But on Saturday night, Gordon stole Payton's spotlight.
Gordon led the Orlando Magic over the Phoenix Suns, 105-99, in Payton's first game against the Magic since the team traded him last month.
Gordon finished with 29 points, 11 rebounds and a career-high eight assists.
The Magic clung to an 88-87 lead midway through the fourth quarter when Gordon dished the ball to Nikola Vucevic, resulting in a two-handed dunk for Vucevic.
After Payton followed on Phoenix's ensuing possession by missing a 3-pointer, Gordon drained a 3-pointer to extend Orlando's lead to 93-87 with 5:30 to play.
Later, with the Magic ahead 96-92, Gordon rattled in a 3-ponter from the left corner to provide some badly needed breathing room.
Gordon received some help.
Vucevic scored 24 points and gathered 11 rebounds, and D.J. Augustin _ Payton's successor as the starting point guard _ added 15 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists. Mario Hezonja, Payton's best friend on the Magic, chipped in 14 points, eight boards and four assists.
Payton was a popular person Saturday night.
It seemed like everyone within his former team wanted to say hello.
Gordon, Vucevic, athletic trainer Keon Weise, equipment manager Sid Powell, a few assistant coaches and others chatted briefly with Payton at different points between 4:45-6:15 p.m.
The crowd inside Amway Center gave him some nice applause when he was introduced as a Suns starter.
The Magic put together a video of some of Payton's highlights from his 3{ seasons with the team and showed the video on their JumboTron during the first timeout of the first quarter. The video prompted only tepid applause.
Payton appeared in 297 regular-season games for the franchise. He distributed 1,910 assists, the seventh-highest career total in team history.
On Saturday, Payton tallied 14 points on 6-of-15 shooting. He also collected five rebounds and dished out eight assists.
When the game ended, Vucevic, Hezonja, Augustin, Evan Fournier, Shelvin Mack, Bismack Biyombo, Jonathan Isaac, Marreese Speights, Wes Iwundu and Jonathon Simmons all met Payton at the midcourt stripe and hugged him or said hello.
Even with injuries to Fournier, Isaac, Simmons and Terrence Ross, the Magic (22-51) should have beaten the Suns (19-55), who were missing Devin Booker, T.J. Warren and Brandon Knight to injuries and didn't play Tyson Chandler.
Since Payton started playing for Phoenix, the Suns had posted a 1-16 record entering Saturday, ranked last in the NBA in points scored per possession and ranked next to last in points allowed per possession. The Suns' lone victory came against the tanking Memphis Grizzlies, a team that lost to the Charlotte Hornets several days ago by 61 points.
The Magic jumped out to a 14-4 lead Saturday and, for a few moments, it looked like they would breeze to an easy victory.
But the Suns fought back.
At one stage in the second quarter, the Magic fielded a lineup of Mack, Rodney Purvis, Jamel Artis, Iwundu and Biyombo. That quintet features three rookies, and two of them _ Purvis and Artis _ began the season in the G League.
No wonder then why the Suns outscored the Magic 23-12 during the second quarter. As bad as the Suns are, their talent level eclipsed the Magic's for much of the quarter.
The Magic recovered in the third quarter. Led by Vucevic and Gordon, they outscored the Suns 39-28 and carried a 77-74 lead into the final period.
The Magic trailed 78-77 early in the fourth quarter but responded with a 9-0 run. Purvis opened the barrage with a 3-pointer, and Hezonja capped off the outburst with a dunk off a lob from Mack.
