Prior to Game 1 of the 2015 Western Conference Semifinals, Brittney Griner received the 2015 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year award for the second consecutive year.

The honor must have been motivating, to say the least; Griner was absolutely dominant in an 88-55 win over the Tulsa Shock setting a new WNBA Playoff record for largest margin of victory.

How dominant? Historically so.

BG finished with 18 points, eight rebounds and a WNBA-record 11 blocks. For comparisons sake, the NBA record for most blocks in a Playoff game is 10 (Mark Eaton, 1985). Brittney Griner tallied 11 in just 24 minutes of action.

“What can you say?” Sandy Brondello said about Griner’s game. “To come out and dominate like she did tonight—11 blocks in what, 24 minutes—that’s amazing. That is how important she is to this team. She wants to win—they all want to win. When you have a player like that that takes pride on the defensive end, it makes everyone else around them even better. At both ends of the floor she (Brittney), I think she is grinding confidence. She’s just becoming a better player and that helps team chemistry.”

Phoenix leads the best-of-three series 1-0 and is 10-1 all-time in a Playoff series after taking a 1-0 lead. The Mercury has a chance to advance to the Western Conference Finals with a win in Tulsa on Saturday, September 19.

“We definitely wanted to come out with a spark, we didn’t want to come out dead,” Brittney Griner said. “Whenever I had the ball, I just wanted to be aggressive and go towards the basket and try to get their posts in foul trouble and block shots. I wanted to come out with a spark and set the tone tonight.”

Indeed, she did. Griner was the catalyst, certainly, but the Mercury’s defense was stellar all-around. So much so, in fact, that Phoenix held Tulsa to just seven points in the second quarter (a new WNBA record). The Mercury forced the Shock into just 26-percent shooting and out-rebounded Tulsa 43-37.

“I’ve mentioned a few times over the past couple of weeks that we are hitting our peak at the right time and that is what you want going into the Playoffs,” Brondello added. “Our bench has really stepped up for us and that has made us a harder team to play against. We did a great job of executing the scout.”

DeWanna Bonner chipped in with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists. Candice Dupree added 10. Leilani Mitchell was a huge boost off the bench scoring 12 points to go along with a game-high six assists.

“When you have BG it is easy to throw it in there and she finishes off the plays,” Mitchell said. “I think our team is really deep and we have a lot of people that can come in and contribute. Today, everyone played to their strengths and did their job and we need to keep that up throughout the playoffs.”

Phoenix is now 8-2 all-time in Game 1 of a playoff series at home. Over the last two seasons, the Mercury is a WNBA-best 35-5 at home (playoffs and regular season).