CHICAGO — Sky guard Natasha Cloud sent a message Tuesday night.
Not just to her former team, the Liberty, whom she torched for a career-high 35 points en route to leading the Sky to a 93-86 win.
But Cloud’s memo was for the entire league and anyone watching.
“I’m not a traditional one, I’m a two-way point guard,” said Cloud, who also had nine rebounds and six assists. “I can score the ball, I really enjoy facilitating. That’s my first thing that I want to do, but when it comes down to it, I can get a bucket.”
Cloud has been open about the heavy toll her lengthy free agency process had on her. The Liberty, a team she appeared to be fully committed to returning to, let her walk after one season. She didn’t sign her next WNBA contract until after training camps opened.
But Cloud got a sweet dose of revenge Tuesday.
Cloud often plays with an edge.
But the fierce style that’s been a trademark of Cloud’s career had been amplified.
Cloud didn’t take plays off. She was a menace on defense, applying ample pressure on defense whether the person she was guarding had the ball in their hands or not.
On offense, she caught fire and never let up.
In the second quarter, Cloud made back-to-back 3s followed by another ex-Liberty player Courtney Vandersloot draining one of her own to give the Sky a nine-point lead with less than four minutes left in the first half.
The Liberty, playing without Jonquel Jones, who exited the first quarter with an ankle injury, didn’t take a lead until late in the fourth quarter.
The Sky have struggled with late-game execution this season.
In each of the Sky’s previous games against the Liberty, they lost by one point.
When Marine Johannès hit a go-ahead 3 with just over two minutes left in the game, it felt like maybe the game was going to have an unsavory ending that the Sky were all too familiar with.
But Cloud refused to let that happen.
“She was in flow state,” Azura Stevens said.
Cloud doubled down, saying, “I was just locked in.”
The Sky went on a 10-2 run to close out the game and seal the win. Cloud had seven points, three rebounds and an assist down the stretch.
“Ain’t God good?” Cloud said after the win. “I still have so much love and respect for the New York organization. I truly loved my time there last year. But God has a way of just reminding you that when you stay dedicated and devoted to His plan for your life that He’s going to reward you. And I know regardless of what the season entailed for us, that my feet are exactly where they’re supposed to be with the team that I’m supposed to be on, and with the people that are helping surround me through some sh-t right now. So just all encompassing, it’s a good feeling.”
The Liberty struggled to contain the Sky, who have the fifth-worst offensive rating in the league.
The Sky scored 20 second-chance points to the Liberty’s six. Chicago also won the rebounding battle, 44-35.
“It seemed like all of them were crashing,” Breanna Stewart said of the Sky’s aggressive rebounding. “A few of them were bad bounces, but we have to all five be in there before we can get out and leak out because we were able to get out in transition, but we would have been able to do that more if we were able to control the boards a little better.”
