All Knicks

Sab n' Tash: Liberty-Mystics Ends With Ionescu, Cloud Backcourt Battle

The New York Liberty's WNBA playoff series against the Washington Mystics featured a brilliant backcourt battle between Sabrina Ionescu and Natasha Cloud.

Geoff Magliocchetti

In this story:

BROOKLYN-Facing the seven was anything but Heaven for the New York Liberty.

The revamped Liberty's reward for earning the second seed on the 2023 WNBA playoff bracket was a best-of-three set with the seventh-ranked Washington Mystics. New York completed the mini-sweep on Tuesday night in Brooklyn but it was far from easy. The 90-85 clincher paced by 27 points from Breanna Stewart needed five extra minutes, delaying the Liberty's first postseason series victory since 2015. 

"Hats off to Washington. They've had a tough year with all their injuries," Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello said. "This is a threat. This is a three-seed in my opinion, a three, or four-seed the way that they competed tonight. I don't know the last time I've seen someone play that hard, that was crazy. I'm exhausted. I can't imagine how exhausted (my players) are."

Natasha Cloud led the way with a career-best 33 points for Washington, which recovered from a cruel summer (4-10 in the immediate All-Star break aftermath) to get back to seventh in the wake of losing 2019 championship cornerstones Ariel Atkins and Elena Delle Donne for a combined 30 games. Washington was 15-12 with Atkins in the lineup and 13-10 with a healthy Delle Donne.  

Cloud, another championship contributor from four seasons prior and player of 37 games this season, was the Capitol headliner in the Mystics' postseason cameo both on and off the court: moral victories don't count on any professional playoff bracket, but Cloud carried an emotional one going into what could be a curious offseason.

Screenshot 2023-09-20 22.30.03
Brandon Todd, NY Liberty

Sabrina Ionescu was perfectly fine with that.

Even before Liberty management's lucrative splurge that netted Stewart and her fellow future Springfield residents, the pages of their recent ledgers were penned by endeavors from. Ionescu took the trend to historic levels this season and pushed such a theme to the postseason with a Liberty playoff record seven triples en route to a 90-75 triumph. 

Everyone with even the slightest connection to seafoam knew that Washington would come out motivated on the brink of elimination. Any doubters were muted by Cloud, who personally projected an overcast evening for the former Oregon Duck: a report from Kareem Copeland of the Washington Post saw Cloud promise to cover Ionescu for all 40 minutes of regulation (overtime being an obvious unspoken caveat) and reject the mere suggestion of switching.

If one wants a job done right, they'd be advised to do it themselves. Cloud did so by bottling up Ionescu to the tune of a 4-of-11 evening from the field, including 2-of-6 with an extra point on the line. New York as a whole shot 4-of-23 from three-point range, forcing them to improvise to the tune of 52 points in the paint. 

It got to the point where Ionescu was removed from point guard duties, the occupation instead freelanced to Stewart. That, Ionescu indirectly claimed, was all part of the plan ... the preseason plan, that is, the one established the moment general manager Jonathan Kolb designed custom Liberty jerseys for Stewart, Jonquel Jones, and Courtney Vandersloot.

Little more needs to be said about Stewart's impact, as the two-time WNBA champion and Syracuse native put on a show in front of fellow Empire State hardwood royalty. Jones' 13th double-double of the season (19 points, 14 rebounds) proved to be her luckiest. Everything Vandersloot shot in overtime (two from the field, two free throws) went through after starting 1-of-9 while Ionescu's fellow long-term Lib Betnijah Laney continued to impress on both sides of the ball.

Dubbed a "decoy" by Brondello over the final stages, Ionescu reveled in the flashiest display of metropolitan teamwork.

"I don't need to score 30 every night as long as we win," Ionescu, scorer of 29 points in Game 1, said. "That's why we have the team that we have and if I'm able to have their best defender out of the action and off the ball and allowing our other players to come off pick and rolls, I've done my job."

"I knew from what she had said before that all my teammates were going to go off," she continued. "If she wasn't going to want to switch and leave me, then Stewie is going to go off for 30 and everyone was going to have the floor." 

As soon as time ran out on Washington's season, Ionescu and Cloud shared a hug and a brief conversation amidst Brooklyn euphoria. 

Mutual respect lingered on each side in the immediate aftermath.

“I knew I talked s***, and I know I was in Sabrina’s stuff and I know I took a few hard fouls on her," Cloud, who also thanked New York fans for a gracious ovation upon her exit, said. "Even though I take that villain role in the game, I have a lot of respect for who Sabrina is, what she is to our league, who she is as a player. Iron sharpens iron, that’s what I said to her ... I really do respect her as a player, enough that I had to make her my primary focus in Game 2."

"We respect them, they're a great team," Ionescu said of Cloud and the Mystics as a whole. "They've won for a very long time. We respect all of their players and they played us tough and they're going to prepare us for what's to come. They came into our home court and battled us from start to finish in both games. There's nothing but respect but obviously, we're the ones that are going to continue on and move forward. That's what we came here to do and the job's not finished."

Time will tell if Ionescu and Cloud will continue to do battle on the Eastern Seaboard, as the latter is due to hit free agency this winter. 

Ionescu, keeping her focus firmly on the road ahead, took the time to declare that she didn't see her matchup with Cloud as a rivalry, noting that she didn't "chirp" at Cloud as each guard let her respective play do the talking. She did hint that Cloud's focus on her will continue to prepare her for having the attention of her fellow semifinalists' top defender.

"I don't know how else to say her comment did not affect me whatsoever," Ionescu declared. "There's no rivalry between the two of us. I think every team's best defender is on me like that every single game, not wanting me to go off. It went in one ear, out the other. I could care less what she had to say at the end of the day. We're going on to the semis and they're going home."

Before all that's settled, the Liberty move on, as Ionescu declared, to the semifinal round for a chance at their first WNBA Finals berth since 2002. A best-of-five set with the Connecticut Sun opens on Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn (1 p.m. ET, ESPN). 

Published
Geoff Magliocchetti
GEOFF MAGLIOCCHETTI

Editor-In-Chief at All Knicks

Home/News