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About 30 minutes had passed since the final horn rang on the Liberty’s 91-85 loss to the Sky, and Natasha Cloud was seething about what had transpired at Barclays Center.

The only time Cloud broke eye contact with the box score on the table in front of her was when she was directly asked questions in the postgame press conference.

“We’re pissed,” Cloud said. “We let one slip.”

About 48 hours after capturing one of their biggest wins of the season, the Liberty laid an egg Thursday against one of the three teams that’s been officially bounced from playoff contention.

The Liberty’s problem Thursday was that they went away from what made them successful in Tuesday’s statement win against the Lynx.

They allowed the Sky to be the aggressors.

They didn’t win the battle of the boards, and their sloppy defense led to foul calls.

“We gotta be more consistent,” Jonquel Jones said. “We can’t come off the game like how we played against Minnesota and come against Chicago and we look like a completely different team.”

Sandy Brondello hopes her team is “pissed off” after falling victim to yet another trap game.

The Liberty (22-14) sit a game behind the Dream (23-14), who moved to second place after beating the Lynx. New York tumbled to fourth in the standings.

The Liberty have been consistently inconsistent all season.

They didn’t play hard Thursday and it cost them.

“We didn’t come ready to play today, which is disappointing,” Brondello said. “And now it’s on us. We got eight games to go. We got to treat every game like a playoff.”

The Sky, losers of 13 of their last 14 games heading into Thursday, had no business being down only three points against the reigning champions heading into the fourth quarter.

But the Liberty allowed Chicago to stick around for far too long and failed to ever pull away.

They were quick to settle for 3-point attempts and didn’t consistently attack the basket or try to get to the free-throw line until it was too late.

Kamilla Cardosa and Angel Reese — affectionately known as Chicago’s “Skyscrapers” — bullied the Liberty inside.

They were two boards away from outrebounding the entire New York team.

The Sky outrebounded the Liberty 42-27 — no, that’s not a typo.

They also outscored New York in the paint 52-26 — again, you read that correctly.

The Sky got to the free-throw line 14 more times than the Liberty — are you sensing a trend?

Cardosa had 22 points, 15 rebounds and five assists, while Reese added 21 points, 10 rebounds and three assists.

The Liberty have struggled with physical opponents at times this season, especially as of late.

They were outmuscled most of the way Thursday night.

“We have to play more physical in the beginning and set the tone early whether that’s the post players or anybody that we’re playing against, guards as well,” said Jones, who led the team with 25 points and seven rebounds. “We can’t … wait until the second half to bring that level of physicality or think that we’re just going to turn it on for possessions because right now, we’re not doing that and championship teams don’t do that. They play from start to finish.”

The parting image of Thursday’s game came with about 26.4 seconds left.

As Reese backpedaled from the free-throw line, she placed her index finger in front of her mouth to hush the boisterous Barclays Center crowd.

It only seemed right after she and her teammates silenced and stunned the Liberty.

“Our inconsistencies is mind boggling,” Brondello said. “We have an opportunity to go into Atlanta now and be there, which is a big game for us. We know that. So that’s the great challenge for this team is to, let’s see what we got. Go out there and let’s not make the same mistakes we did today, like, foul discipline, too. Something always haunts us.

“But we believe in these players. We believe in this team and I’m confident we’ll turn it around.”