The best rivalry in basketball.

Not just women’s basketball. Not just the WNBA.

Basketball.

This match-up has become something of a yearly tradition as the Phoenix Mercury and Minnesota Lynx meet in the WNBA’s Western Conference Finals for the third time in four years. Overall, this is the fourth Western Conference Finals meeting between Phoenix and Minnesota. Since the current Conference Finals format was adopted in 1999, no two teams have met more often in the Western Conference Finals.

Each series, however, has been vastly different, yet equally as fascinating with varying leading and supporting characters each season.

This year, though, may turn out to be the most compelling.

“We know them and they know us,” Brittney Griner said. “Both teams have some new pieces but the intensity and competitiveness is still really high. It should be fun.”

Indeed, it’s more than simply it the frequency at which these two teams play each other. From dominant performances and last-second finishes to Diana Taurasi’s unforgettable half-court shot in 2014, the games (and each series, for that matter) have been, in a word, thrilling.

“I think it’s a series most WNBA fans want to see,” Candice Dupree said. “I don’t think a lot of people picked us [Phoenix] to get this far this year, but we always believed in each other as a team right from the start. We’ve kind of been rivals over the past few years and there’s definitely been some memorable moments in our games so we are looking forward to the challenge.”

Since Sandy Brondello has been at the helm of the Mercury the tone of the series has dramatically shifted. The Lynx had largely dominated the match-up prior to her arrival, but Phoenix has won five of the last eight games against the Lynx including the 2014 Western Conference Finals.

Furthermore, in 2015, the Mercury won the season series for the second consecutive season. Including the regular season and playoffs, the home team has won the last 11 games in the series (dating back to June 15, 2014 when Phoenix won at Minnesota).

“They’re a great team,” Brondello said. “They defend very well and are starting to get healthy. Look, for us, we just want to keep improving every day on both ends of the floor which has been our goal all season long. We’re going to play the best possible basketball we can and hopefully that’s good enough to win.”

Humorously (for the most part), the rivalry has even extended itself into some rather “playful” banter between fans on social media (to put it nicely), and between the two teams’ official Twitter accounts. (We’re partial to the Mercury’s gifs but there’s a small chance we may be biased.)

It starts tomorrow. #TogetherWeWILL pic.twitter.com/uxBTA00JQz

— Phoenix Mercury (@PhoenixMercury) September 23, 2015

“There’s definitely an added level of intensity because we’ve played them in the Playoffs so much,” DeWanna Bonner said. “We just have to keep playing aggressive and focus on ourselves.

“This is what it’s all about.”

Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals is on ESPN2 at 5 P.M. on Thursday, September 24.