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This season, Orlando trails only Golden State, Milwaukee and Houston – three teams expected to go deep in the playoffs – in assist percentage. Vogel thinks that the Magic’s passing can only improve and should get better over time with point guard Elfrid Payton back after missing eight games with a hamstring strain.

``I just met with my analytics team to not only tell me what percentage of our makes are assisted, but what percent our total attempts (come off passes),’’ Vogel said. ``I just wanted to see, `Are we shooting unassisted shots? Are we creating our own shots or are we shooting assisted shots?’ It’s no secret that assisted shots are a higher percentage (success rate) than unassisted shots. We want to try to dominate from there.’’

``It’s good to get this win and get some great momentum,’’ Gordon said of opening the first West Coast trip with a victory. ``We know that we’ve got a tough team in Denver coming up and they just got a couple of good wins. We’re just going to continue our strong play of moving the ball, sharing the ball and playing the way that we know that we can play.’’

``We believe that if we keep playing the right way we can keep it going,’’ Vucevic said. ``We’re shooting a high percentage, but it’s not like we’re taking crazy shots and they’re going in. We’re really working to get offensively to get good looks. A lot of our threes are wide-open looks and when we play with spacing we’re really hard to defend. If we keep playing that way we should be able to be as effective offensively.’’

``The motto of our offense right now is, `Open man is king,’’’ Ross said. ``We’re trying to attack and swing it, attack and swing it and get it to the open man. Eventually something will open up for us, even if we have to use the whole 24 (seconds on the shot block). That’s the motto we’re playing with and it’s paying off big time for us.’’