SACRAMENTO – After the Kings’ thrilling 120-111 win over the Houston Rockets on Tuesday night, De’Aaron Fox sat at his postgame press conference podium and essentially was asked the same question three different times.

The first time, he was asked about how he felt his team responded to the second-quarter skirmish with Dillon Brooks and other Rockets players.

“I think we responded well,” Fox said. “Like you said, people don’t usually do it to me – for good reason. I wasn’t spoken to after that, though. But as a team, we definitely responded well.”

Straightforward and to the point.

A few moments later, he was asked how fun that game was to him.

“Like I said, people don’t talk s–t to me all the time,” Fox responded. “So not much to say after that.”

Finally, Fox was asked once more about whether he enjoys those moments when tensions rise and he thrives.

Another short, blunt and potentially cryptic response ensued.

“You say something to me, come along for the ride,” Fox said.

That ride began late in the second quarter when Brooks, a self-proclaimed NBA villain, displayed his typical antics with Domantas Sabonis. The Kings star center was unbothered by it all, responding the only way he knew how – on the court with his play. A 5-foot hook shot to be exact.

Moments later, Fox was called for a personal foul on Jabari Smith Jr., and the two began to exchange words as other players from both teams got involved. After several minutes of back-and-forth, and players having to be separated and escorted back to their respective benches, Brooks, Smith Jr. and Malik Monk were assessed a technical foul.

After the chatter finally died down, the energy didn’t – at least for Sacramento.

The Kings responded with an 11-1 run to close the first half. Eight of those points came from Fox. He had 10 total since the heated altercation occurred at the 4:19 mark of the second.

“I thought our guys competed,” Kings coach Mike Brown said postgame. “When s–t got going and they got up in our face, or something happened with us to them, we started around like we’re supposed to, but we did it smartly. And that’s how you compete. You can compete without getting three, four, five, six techs or getting thrown out the game. 

“You can make sure your presence is known on both ends of the floor, and that’s our third standard. And I thought our guys did that at a very high level. Hell of a game by everybody.”

Sacramento kept it going in the third quarter, outscoring Houston 42-29 before the Rockets fully lost their composure in the fourth.

Rockets coach Ime Udoka and Rockets center Alperen Sengun were ejected after picking up double technical fouls with just under two minutes remaining in the game.

Fox might not outwardly state it, but the way he comes alive and thrives off all the trash talk is nothing new to his game. We’ve seen it happen over and over again.

But Tuesday night was particularly special — and needed — for a Kings team that had dropped six of its previous seven games. They needed their leader, and he delivered.

And even if he won’t say it, his righthand man Monk will.

“When somebody starts talking to Fox, he locks in even more,” Monk said. “I think we need more teams to do that to him.”

Monk added that he loves the competitiveness that results from all the extracurriculars as it did Tuesday night, adding “That’s why you play basketball.”

There was plenty of fire inside Golden 1 Center on Tuesday night, but one team had theirs controlled while the others got out of control. That’s a characteristic Brown hopes the Kings can carry going forward. He doesn’t want his guys to necessarily pick a fight, but he also doesn’t want them to back down from one. To him, it’s about being smart about it.

Tuesday, his guys were.

And maybe smartest of all was Fox, joined by the ever so steady and impactful Sabonis and unconditional leader DeMar DeRozan. After the game, Brown said Fox spoke to the team and applauded the effort as a whole.

“It’s who we are supposed to be,” Brown said. “It’s not about bottling it. That’s our standard. We have to compete, and we competed for 48 minutes tonight. Fox said it to our group at the end in the locker room, he said the way we competed in terms of the physicality that we brought to the table, how hard we played for one another, how we protected one another, covered for one another and gave up 20 free throws. It’s a hell of a job and we got to keep that going because that’s who we are. That’s what he said.”

Fox finished with 22 points on 9-of-19 shooting from the field and 4 of 6 from 3-point range, with six rebounds, seven assists, three steals and one block. He was a plus-17 in plus/minus rating in 37 minutes.

It takes gas and an engine for a rocket to take off, but it only takes a few words to get a fox going. Let this serve as a warning for the rest of the league — and a lesson learned for the Rockets.

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