Diana Taurasi won the 2009 WNBA MVP award by a landslide.

Taurasi then went out and scored 22 points to help lead the Phoenix Merucury to a game one victory in the WNBA Finals.

The 6-foot guard and former #1 draft pick led the WNBA in scoring at 20.4 points per game, shooting a career-high 46.1% from the field in leading her Mercury to the best record in the WNBA at 23-11.

Taurasi was also named to her fourth All-Star Game as well as securing her third-career Peak Performer Award for scoring (2006, 2008, 2009).

”The highest compliment in the women’s game still is ‘She plays like a guy,”’ Ann Meyers-Drysdal, Phoenix’s General Manager, said of Taurasi. ”(Taurasi is) a player that’s going to be talked about for a long time.”

According to the AP: Taurasi received 27 first-place votes and 323 points overall in ballots cast by a panel that included representatives of every WNBA market and members of the national media. Runner-up Tamika Catchings of Indiana got three first-place votes and 163 points.

Katie Douglas of Indiana was third with five first-place votes, 128 points, and Taurasi’s teammate Cappie Pondexter finished fourth with 99 points overall and one first-place ballot.

Taurasi is in her in her sixth season, she and Pondexter are going for their team’s second WNBA championship in three years.

Taurasi was presented with the MVP honor at a news conference before the Mercury defeated the Indiana Fever in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, 120-116.

Cappie Pondexter and Australian Penny Taylor top-scored for the Mercury with 23 points a piece. Taurasi added 22 points.