WNBA's premier players set to face off in semifinals

— -- Having seen Ron Howard's documentary, "The Beatles: Eight Days a Week," about the legendary band's brief but insanely popular touring years, I found myself thinking about how we react to greatness when it's in front of us.

Did the people who saw the Beatles in concert in 1964 really know the magnitude of what they were seeing? No, how could they? In a clip in the film, when asked that year about being a cultural phenomenon, Paul McCartney sounds embarrassed and says they're just doing this "for a laugh." Throughout 1964, the question even the Beatles themselves asked was: "When will the bubble burst?" Of course, it never did. And never will.

Sports greatness is different in a lot of ways. New future Beatles fanatics are still born every day. But it's harder to fully appreciate athletes without seeing them in the moment.

When it comes to women's sports, there is even more tied to the immediacy of seeing them live, because their legends generally aren't built up or maintained as well as men's are. So as Minnesota and Phoenix meet in the WNBA semifinals over the next week, don't miss the opportunity to reflect on seeing Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi on the same floor again.

Moore's Lynx and Taurasi's Mercury are meeting in the playoffs for the fifth time in the past six years, starting with games Wednesday (ESPN2, 8 p.m. ET) and Friday (ESPNews, 8 p.m. ET) in St. Paul, Minnesota. The best-of-five series shifts to Phoenix on Sunday (ESPN, 5 p.m.). The Lynx won all three regular-season meetings.

Moore and Taurasi also shared the court on the same side during the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Taurasi was the U.S. team's leading scorer as she won her fourth Olympic gold medal. Moore was second on the team in scoring and led in assists; she won her second gold.

Both have three WNBA titles. If one should lead her team to the championship this year, she'll join Houston Comets standouts such as Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson with a record four championships.

Taurasi and Moore have been linked ever since the latter ended up on the same college path at UConn, but it goes back even further. They share a birthday: June 11.

Taurasi, born in 1982, is seven years older, and she came cross-country from California -- a Lakers fan, with vibrant West Coast sports pride -- to play at UConn in 2000.

I still can recall a coach who saw Taurasi play in high school saying that she might be the best player ever to come into the women's college game, but ... she was cocky as hell. This coach wondered if UConn's Geno Auriemma would be able to deal with her.

It's hilarious to now think back on that conversation, because we know they ended up being -- and still are -- a match made in basketball heaven. Taurasi will always be the player closest to Auriemma's wisecracking, fiercely competitive heart. When Taurasi famously went 1-of-15 from the field as a freshman in the 2001 national semifinals and UConn fell to Notre Dame, Auriemma still praised her for the way she'd played all that season. He said she might never lose at the Final Four again.

And she never did, playing on perhaps the greatest women's college team in 2002, and then putting the team on her back for two more titles, in 2003 and '04.

Moore was born and spent her childhood in Missouri, then moved to Atlanta. When she went to UConn in 2007, there was similar hype even though she and Taurasi were different types of players. And very different personalities. You weren't going to get wisecracks and comic bravado from Moore. Even as an 18-year-old, Moore seemed to have the sensibilities of a 30-year-old.

And she related to other players on court differently, too. Taurasi thinks like a point guard even when she's not in that spot in a lineup, and her ability to connect to, inspire and communicate with teammates is unsurpassed in women's hoops.

Moore, a smooth and fluid forward, is more insular. It's not that she isn't a great teammate. But she was always in her own head a little more, constantly critiquing and refining her own performance to exacting standards.

Both Auriemma and Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve talked about how one of Moore's challenges was to integrate herself fully with her teammates, to not be quite so much on Planet Maya. And she has worked hard at doing that.

Moore won two national championships at UConn, and then in 2011 was drafted No. 1 to a Minnesota team that was perfectly set up to need her as the final piece to the championship puzzle. The Lynx won the WNBA title her rookie year and have been contenders ever since. The only season of the Moore's career that the Lynx didn't make the WNBA Finals was in 2014, when they lost to Taurasi and the Mercury in the Western Conference finals.

The show within the show

Taurasi was drafted No. 1 to a Phoenix franchise in 2004 that still had to grow to reach contender status. The Mercury won their first title in 2007. Two more followed, in 2009 and '14.

Taurasi (2009) and Moore (2014) have been the league's MVP, and in both cases it seems weird, actually, that each has won that honor only once. In the time they've been in the WNBA together, Taurasi and Moore have been the premier players.

At 27, Moore is still in her peak years as an athlete. As long as the Lynx can stay competitive around her, it's reasonable to wonder just how many WNBA titles she might win. Seven? Eight?

Taurasi, at 34, is getting closer to the end of her career, but it's hard to say how close. If her body holds up, you can see her playing as long as she possibly can. She'd like to add more to her championship collection, too.

Taurasi has hit so many clutch shots over the years, it's hard to tag just one as her signature moment. But it's easy to pinpoint her signature play: the pull-up 3-pointer. She makes it looks deceptively simple, and it's deadly. She's dribbling ... dribbling ... and then after what seems a mere flick of the wrist, the ball is going through the net. You can only imagine how defenders feel.

For Moore, the signature shot is that balletic finger roll: the grace, the power, the body control as she glides to the rim.

Her signature moment came last year in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals at Indiana. The teams had split games at Minnesota, and it was feeling a lot like the 2012 WNBA Finals, in which the Fever upset the Lynx in four games. But Moore's 3-point buzzer-beater gave the Lynx a 80-77 victory.

If she missed, the game would have gone to overtime. And if the Fever had won, they would have been playing for the title at home a few nights later. But she didn't miss.

With the new playoff format this season doing away with conferences and taking the top eight teams, Minnesota earned a comfortable and familiar position: the No. 1 seed. Phoenix had a much bumpier ride and ended up as No. 8.

But they're both here now, three wins from a place in the WNBA Finals. The show within the show is Maya vs. Diana.

Is it true greatness vs. true greatness? You know the answer to that: Yeah, yeah, yeah.