NEW YORK -- On the day the New York Liberty celebrated their 2024 WNBA championship with a ring ceremony and banner-raising, it was one of their newcomers who stole the show to kick off the season.
Point guard Natasha Cloud delivered a standout two-way performance in her Liberty debut Saturday, highlighted by back-to-back three-point plays in the fourth quarter that shifted the momentum in New York's favor for good, to lift her team past the visiting Las Vegas Aces 92-78 in their 2025 opener.
Cloud -- who was traded from the Phoenix Mercury in the offseason, first to the Connecticut Sun and then to the Liberty -- had 22 points, 6 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. No moment from the game was louder than when Cloud completed consecutive and-1 plays early in the fourth, bumping New York's lead from two points to eight.
An extended ovation from the Barclays Center crowd of 17,344 served as her "welcome to New York" moment.
"I came out of the next huddle and Stewie's like, 'How do you like this crowd?'" said Cloud, who spent the majority of her career with the Washington Mystics. "And I was like, honestly, I thought they were gonna charge the court the way they were screaming. But no, it's electrifying."
Cloud, who typically hangs her hat on defense, became the fourth player with 20 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists in a team debut in WNBA history and the first with a 22-6-9 stat line.
"I just think she's relentless," Aces head coach Becky Hammon added of Cloud. "She plays ridiculously hard the entire time. She's in really great shape. She knows exactly who she is, and she never gets outside of that. She's just disruptive. But offensively, she just turned the corner on our defense, our schemes. It was like the Spanish olé guy, the hole they just run right through, right down the pipe to the rim."
Cloud was joined in the 20-point club by teammate Breanna Stewart, who had 25 points. Las Vegas was led by reigning MVP A'ja Wilson with 31.
The Liberty-Aces showdown -- a prominent rivalry in the league over the past three seasons -- featured the winners of six of the past seven MVPs as well as the past three WNBA championships. Both teams have some new players, but Sunday reflected how most of their 2024 meetings went: Liberty domination.
New York led by as many as 17 in the second period and got practically whatever it wanted on offense, including 56 points inside the paint. The defending champs assisted 27 of their 35 made baskets and scored 28 and 29 points in the second and fourth quarters, respectively. Las Vegas got its offense going after halftime, but Cloud's big final frame, which also included a 3-pointer and three of her nine assists, was enough to keep the Aces at bay.
"Her versatility, her ability to get downhill and attack the rim, putting her in great spots to succeed and read the defense, and then defensively, just being everywhere, pressuring," Stewart said on what she saw from Cloud in her first regular season game for the Liberty.
"And she's unselfish. She knows when to find her teammates, and she knows when to call her own number and use the length and the size that she has to really dictate what she wants offensively."
Cloud, who replaced Courtney Vandersloot at the point, wasn't the only high-profile newcomer on the floor at Barclays. In her first game with the Aces after playing her entire career with the Seattle Storm, guard Jewell Loyd had a muted debut with five points on 2-for-10 shooting.
Hammon said she was generally displeased with her team's poor ball movement and player movement on offense, making it difficult to counter the Liberty's defensive pressure.
"Knowing Jewell, she's not happy about herself," said Wilson, who recorded her WNBA-record 17th 30-point double-double. "I just wanted to make sure that I can constantly be in her ear and let her know, always remember who she is, and I don't ever want her to get lost in that. I'm constantly telling her I trust her every single day with every shot she takes, and we're going to all do that for her. ... The best is yet to come."
The Liberty are 7-1 against the Aces since the beginning of the 2024 season and have led by double figures in each of those wins.
The teams, who faced off in the 2023 finals and 2024 semifinals, play twice more this regular season: July 8 in Brooklyn and Aug. 13 in Las Vegas.