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Magic beat Suns 105-99 in Elfrid Payton’s return to Orlando

When the final buzzer sounded Saturday night, Orlando Magic players walked toward midcourt and said hello to former teammate Elfrid Payton.

Aaron Gordon, Mario Hezonja and Nikola Vucevic shook Payton’s hand and gave him quick hugs. Evan Fournier, D.J. Augustin, Shelvin Mack, Bismack Biyombo, Jonathan Isaac, Marreese Speights, Wes Iwundu and Jonathon Simmons all followed, either from other spots on the court or from the Magic’s bench.

In those hand clasps, embraces and whispered good-luck wishes, the Magic demonstrated how much they still care for Payton, a point guard who was traded from the Magic to the Phoenix Suns on Feb. 8, just minutes before the NBA trade deadline expired.

“It means a lot,” Payton said after the game in the visitors’ locker room.

“It didn’t surprise me. A lot of people asked me, ‘Do I still talk to any of those guys?’ We’re still talking all the time. They support me a lot, want me to do well, and the feeling is mutual. I’ve been through the trenches with those guys, been through a lot of things and a lot of ups and downs. Seeing them go through ups and downs — those types of things build relationships that last forever.”

Over the preceding 2 hours, 7 minutes, Orlando players didn’t treat Payton quite so kindly. The Magic recovered from an awful second quarter, gained just enough breathing room in the fourth quarter and defeated the reeling Suns 105-99 at Amway Center.

“It’s weird,” Gordon said. “He’d been a point guard here for the longest [time], as long as I’ve been here. He’s a competitor and we’re going to be competing against each other for a long time. So I wish him all the luck. That’s my brother.”

Gordon and Payton, who entered the NBA together in 2014, indeed are friends, but Gordon stole Payton’s spotlight Saturday.

The Magic clung to an 88-87 lead midway through the fourth quarter when Gordon dished the ball to Vucevic, who ended the sequence with a two-handed dunk.

After Payton followed on Phoenix’s ensuing possession by missing a 3-pointer, Gordon drained a 3-pointer of his own to extend Orlando’s lead to 93-87 with 5:30 to play.

The late surge made up for a terrible second quarter in which the Suns outscored the Magic 23-12, allowing the Suns to carry a 46-38 lead into halftime.

“We didn’t play hard or with enough energy in the first half,” Augustin said. “We kind of let them being the Phoenix Suns kind of [be] factor in how we played. In the second half, we realized that if we didn’t play hard, they were going to beat us. And we didn’t want to lose.”

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.

The Suns have lost 17 of their 18 games since Payton joined them.

The crowd inside Amway Center showered him with applause when public-address announcer Paul Porter introduced him as a Suns starter. A few minutes later, during a timeout early in the first quarter, the arena JumboTron displayed a video of some highlights from Payton’s 3½ seasons with the Magic.

On Saturday, Payton tallied 14 points on 6-of-15 shooting. He also collected five rebounds and dished out eight assists as he committed just one turnover.

He and his former teammates didn’t speak much to each other during the game itself. Not even Hezonja — Payton’s best friend on the Magic — chimed in.

“A.G. held my arm on a screen one time,” Payton said. “That’s about as close as it got, which was surprising. I thought for sure that Mario was going to talk trash to me today. He was pretty quiet today — for the first time ever in his life.”

That’s OK.

When the game ended, Hezonja and every other Magic player piped up.

They walked over to Payton and wished him well.