Orlando Magic: Top 10 moments of the 2018-19 NBA season

4. Aaron Gordon’s playoff breakout

The trip to the playoffs wound up being a disappointing one, but it is hard to get too down because of what a success the season was as a whole. However, one inescapable fact is that most of Orlando’s key players failed to turn up in the series against the Raptors.

This is not true for Gordon, however, who among all players on the roster looked the most comfortable under the brighter spotlight that is the playoffs. He never looked afraid of the moment, of taking a shot or making the right play with the ball in his hands.

Defensively he put in a performance that will get lost because he was guarding Kawhi Leonard, but it was encouraging in a lot of ways. Among his performances in the series, he was at his best in that unexpected Game 1 win, putting up 25 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Gordon did more than be the consistent influence around which others rallied throughout the game.

For the series, he averaged a team-high 15.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game on 46.8 percent shooting from the floor and 40 percent shooting from 3-point range.

He stepped up when it was clear this was not going to be a night to remember for Vucevic. Even in the losses, he gave Magic fans something to cheer about, and what this will have done is convince the front office that, whenever they make it back to the postseason again, Gordon is going to be a player who will show up.

We didn’t know that heading into the season because the franchise hadn’t been there in so long. We do now, and Gordon’s Game 1 breakout served as the most promising information to come out of the series.