DENVER – New Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon and former Nuggets guard R.J. Hampton set out to show what their former teams recently traded away to start Sunday’s game against Orlando at Ball Arena, and Gordon and the Nuggets walked away winners, 119-109.

Hampton, the rookie guard the Nuggets traded as part of a package to get Gordon to Denver, scored the game’s first bucket and followed it with a 3-pointer. Gordon responded with a layup and a 3 to tie it. Hampton put the Magic back in front, and Gordon answered with consecutive buckets to give the Nuggets a 9-7 lead before any other player scored.

Gordon would go on to score Denver’s first 12 points and finished with a game-high 24 points, but he said any other narrative was far from his mind.

“The only thing that was on my mind was win,” Gordon said. “I’m out here to do my job, take care of business and come out with a win.”

Nikola Jokic, who finished with 17 points, 16 assists and nine rebounds, said the Nuggets weren’t trying to get Gordon off to a hot start. It was just that Gordon was doing his job, cutting into open space and making defenses pay.

“He was just in the right place,” Jokic said. “I told the guys ‘Sometimes you’re going to score two points, five points. Sometimes you’re going to score 24.’ It depends. I think we have a lot of weapons and we are dangerous in a lot of ways.”

Behind Gordon and Jokic, the Nuggets got 22 points from Jamal Murray and 20 from Michael Porter Jr. Will Barton III added 15, and Monte Morris led the bench with 10 points after missing a dozen games with a quadriceps strain.

Chuma Okeke led Orlando with 19 points, while Hampton ended the game with 16 points, a career high, after scoring Orlando’s first seven in his first game back in Denver. The rookie appeared to say something to Denver’s bench after a couple of early buckets.

“Going into the game, he texted us and FaceTimed,” Morris said of his old teammate. “So we already knew what type of energy he was coming with.”

Hampton’s early impact helped the Magic hang around early before they took off late in the first quarter and extended the lead to double digits in the second quarter.

“That first half was our worst half of the season, and it wasn’t who we’ve been. We’ve stayed true to who we’ve been lately,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said before lamenting the team’s nine turnovers that led to 15 of Orlando’s 65 first-half points.

“We had poor offense, poor defense, poor effort. That was all it was.”

After trailing by 18 at halftime, the Nuggets briefly regained the lead in the third quarter and trailed by one to start the fourth. The lead seemingly changed hands with each bucket in the fourth quarter until Gordon put down a reverse dunk and Porter got a put-back to drop with 3:37 left. Murray and Porter hit 3s around a Barton dunk to put it away in the final minutes.

“When we defend, rebound and run, can’t nobody in the league guard us,” Morris said. “We got back to that in the second half, and you see the results. We were able to come out on top.”

The Nuggets will welcome back a couple of more former teammates when the Pistons come to Denver for a game Tuesday. Jerami Grant and Mason Plumlee were back in town for a game earlier this season, but it was postponed minutes before tipoff. This time around, the Nuggets will have a piece in Gordon they’ve used to replace Grant and Plumlee, two of the team’s top defenders from last season.

“(Gordon) got us off to a great start, obviously, with the R.J. Hampton-Aaron Gordon show, as both guys were going at their former teams,” Malone said. “He’s just a really good basketball player. He provides so much on both ends of the floor, and that’s why you have to give up a Gary Harris and a young asset like R.J. Hampton, because guys like Aaron Gordon, there’s just not many of them out there. We’re thrilled that he’s here with us, and we’re playing well with him.”