Pairing of coach Mike Brown and point guard De’Aaron Fox paying off for Sacramento Kings

Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox kept harping on a specific message during a 17-2 run in the third quarter of Friday’s 122-113 victory over the Detroit Pistons.

“We gotta get stops,” Fox kept telling his teammates.

Anyone who has followed Fox’s career with the Kings knows Fox has never been considered a plus defender. He’s been the blunted tip of Sacramento’s defensive spear while the team ranked near the bottom of the league in defense over his first five NBA seasons.

But Fox is making strides on that end while the Kings are showing steady improvement. Sacramento through eight games in December ranks eighth in the NBA in defensive rating (110.3) and has moved to 18th overall. That comes after ranking 20th in November (113.2) and 21st in October (114.3). There’s little doubt the Kings will go as far as their defensive improvement takes them this season.

“It’s great,” Domantas Sabonis said of Fox’s increased vocal presence. “He’s been doing it more in the games, talking in the huddle. The more we can talk, the better it’s gonna be for us.”

There was a play during the third quarter in Detroit in which Fox fought over a screen and poked the ball away from Alec Burks. It ended up in the hands of Sabonis, who rewarded Fox with a pass leading to a dunk on the other end. It was a key moment in a quarter in which the Kings outscored the Pistons by 15 points, leading to victory and a 3-3 finish to their six-game road trip.

On being more vocal, Fox downplayed the praise from coaches and teammates.

“It’s really just me telling (my teammates) what I’m seeing out there, what I think we need to do,” Fox said. “It’s not really like a conscious thing. People ask my opinions, and if I see something that’s going on, I gotta let them know.”

Brown mentioned the sequence after the game and said it made Fox a candidate for the now-coveted Defensive Player of the Game award, which entitles the winner to wear the team’s new DPOG chain. Ultimately, that nod went to Harrison Barnes for the second game in a row.

Brown, of course, has prioritized defensive improvement. His defensive acumen was a key reason he was hired to help quell the team’s 16-year playoff drought. And he’s made no secret about getting Fox to improve, not only as a defender, but as a tone-setting leader.

To that end, Brown says he’s seen Fox make substantial growth in both areas. Before fielding questions during Friday’s postgame news conference, Brown went on a soliloquy about his point guard, which he’s been known to do throughout the season. It came after the Kings outscored the Pistons by 17 in the second half after falling behind 63-55 at halftime.

“I thought it took a little bit for us to wake up in that first half,” Brown said. “And the things that Fox continues to say on the bench and in the locker room and in the huddles, the leadership is just growing by leaps and bounds on a daily basis. He’s so far ahead of where he was when I first got here.

“When he says it, you can feel the guys gravitating towards every word he says — and hanging on to it and believing in what he’s saying.”

Brown credited Fox’s words to his teammates as vital to the second-half turnaround in Detroit. Fox finished the game with a team-high 24 points, including arguably his most explosive dunk of the season with two minutes left.

“Even during the flow of the game,” Brown said, “there were times when I called a play and he waved me off. And I absolutely love it. That’s what a leader does. And when you have the feel that he does, you have the right to do all those things. This is his team. This is Domas’ team. Both those guys are All-Stars and they’re both stepping up huge in a lot of different ways, even in ways that people don’t see. That’s the neat part about them.”

Fox has never been named an All-Star and might have a hard time making it to Utah in February given the crowded nature of the position in the Western Conference. Luka Doncic (33.0), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (31.2), Stephen Curry (30.0), Damian Lillard (28.5), Ja Morant (27.6) and Devin Booker (26.9) are all averaging more points per game and have strong arguments. Fox is ninth among Western Conference guards, averaging 22.6 points.

Regardless, Fox is easily having the best season of his six-year career. His scoring is slightly down from the last two seasons, but his efficiency has been his best since entering the NBA. His effective field goal percentage, which accounts for 2-point and 3-point goals, is 49.3%, while his previous best was 48% in 2019-20. His true shooting percentage, which adds the value of free throws, is also a career best 59%, better than his previous high of 56.5% in 2020-21.

Most importantly, the Kings are 16-12, the best record they’ve had through 28 games in Fox’s six seasons. Fox entered Friday’s game eighth in the NBA in clutch scoring situations, averaging 4.2 points per game, and tied for fifth in total clutch points with 55. Clutch situations are defined as the last five minutes of a game with a deficit of less than five points.

It’s clear the offensive system Brown installed — emphasizing pace and space along with a slew of screens and handoffs from Sabonis — has helped Fox see a rise in his productivity.

More proof of the strong relationship between Brown, Fox and the rest of the team came Wednesday when Brown went to bat for Fox after he was called for a technical foul in Toronto. Brown went on a tirade and got ejected from the game in the third quarter, which players said afterwards was a reason the team’s energy changed leading to the one-point victory. The NBA announced Friday that Brown was fined $25,000 for the incident.

“It’s great, just knowing your coach has your back through thick and thin,” Fox said. “It starts from the top, top to bottom, whenever you’re trying to build a culture and build guys playing for each other.”