Natasha Cloud ready to bring ‘dawg’ mentality to New York Liberty’s WNBA title defense
Cloud, a Cardinal O’Hara and St. Joseph’s product, said her fiery playing style has been embraced in her first season with the Liberty.
NEW YORK — Natasha Cloud remembers a game she played against the Liberty in 2023 when, even as an opponent with the Washington Mystics, she received a standing ovation while walking off the Barclays Center court.
“Philly and New York are very similar in the ways that we support our teams,” said Cloud, a Cardinal O’Hara and St. Joseph’s product. “ … If you go out every single night and give your grittiness and everything you’ve got, this crowd is going to appreciate you.”
That mutual respect has only deepened since Cloud became a member of the defending WNBA champions following an offseason trade. The veteran point guard called this season a “reset,” even while rapidly acclimating to a new team navigating numerous injuries. And when the playoffs begin Sunday at the Phoenix Mercury (4 p.m., ESPN), Cloud will be ready to bring her “dawg” mentality — and her own championship experience from Washington’s 2019 run — in New York’s quest to repeat.
“That’s my job, to kind of set the tone every single night,” Cloud told The Inquirer before the Liberty’s 75-66 home victory over Washington on Tuesday night. “If that means taking a hard foul against the other team and making sure that we’re ready to play, that’s just what I’m going to do.”
Recent evidence of that willingness: the sleek black mask Cloud continues to wear to protect a broken nose, the result of an elbow to the face from the Atlanta Dream’s Brionna Jones. And anybody who has followed Cloud’s career — she spent her first eight WNBA seasons in Washington and last summer in Phoenix — recognizes her passionate style on the court and outspoken personality off it.
This season, though, Cloud said she needed to bring some “water” into her basketball approach. That mindset helped quell any bubbling frustrations while learning teammates’ tendencies as lineups shifted. She averaged 10.1 points, 5.1 assists, and 3.7 rebounds in 41 regular-season games for the Liberty, who went 27-17 and landed the playoffs’ fifth seed.
“Your water is really important to kind of smooth and ease stuff over,” Cloud said. “But then, your fire is still also necessary to get things going. I’ve had to balance both my water and my fire while still figuring out how to be productive and help my teammates out on the floor.”
That’s why Cloud was one of the players who spoke up when the Liberty’s defense slipped earlier in the summer, calling it “just too soft” and “not the elite standard” before the team’s recommitment to that end of the floor down the stretch.
Superstar teammate Breanna Stewart said Tuesday that she expects Cloud to be impactful on defense throughout the playoffs, when she will be tasked with disrupting the opponent’s best guard.
“To have her kind of leading that and just bringing us energy on both ends,” Stewart said, “it’s a domino effect for everyone else.”
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With the Liberty’s stacked roster finally whole for the regular season’s final week, coach Sandy Brondello said Tuesday that Cloud will share ballhandling duties with fellow facilitators Stewart and All-Star Sabrina Ionescu.
Cloud added she now feels “a lot more comfortable” with which actions teammates want at different moments of the game, highlighting post Jonquel Jones’ 11-point second half Tuesday. Cloud also critiqued herself, saying she needed to get Ionescu and Leonie Fiebich more touches.
She trusts that her teammates’ chemistry from last season’s title run — plus her push through this summer’s “heat of the storm” — will allow them to execute offensively when the playoff pressure rises in tight games.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than seeing a stat line, and seeing everybody involved from top to bottom,” Cloud said.
How Cloud has been embraced in her new basketball home was apparent before Tuesday’s game, when Brondello wrapped her point guard in a massive hug before Cloud began her on-court warmup. And again when she was announced in the starting lineup, and the thought “I can’t believe that I get to play here every single night” crossed her mind again. Or after the Liberty’s win, when Cloud was informed that cookies featuring her face were the halftime snack in the media room.
“Stop!” she said when given a cookie. “This is cuuute. It even got my little bangs. As a matter of fact, let me put them down.”
Up next is officially joining the Liberty’s quest to repeat as champions, during which Cloud expects that mutual appreciation between her and New York to deepen even more.
“This is when your competitiveness and all that dawg [comes out],” she said. “I’m salivating waiting. I can’t wait to play here, in front of this crowd, in a playoff game.”