A kiss is just a kiss until it ends with double technical fouls being called.

“See what happened here, they’ve been playing against each other since they were 10 and 12 years old.” (Via ESPN)

Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and longtime friend/competitor Seimone Augustus of the Minnesota Lynx battled hard in Game 1 of the WNBA Western Conference Finals. (Via StarTribune)

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In a push-comes-to-love type of moment, the chest-bumping turned into a peck. And the ref wasn’t having it. But the fouls didn’t make much of a difference in a game Minnesota won by 20-plus points.

“Can we all agree that this is excessive?,” a USA Today writer asks. “The fouls, not the peck. Male and female opponents have solved their differences in a variety of innocuous ways. There are butt taps, head pats, hugs, fist bumps, and now there’s a friendly cheek peck.”

 Right? Like this smooch Sports Illustrated featured in a “Memorable Kisses in Sports” slideshow — between Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas.

Then there’s this explanation on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that turned into a demo.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “I don’t understand.”

REPORTER: “It was so intense she had to break the tension. There was tension. So she had a sense of humor. So she gave her a kiss.”

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: “I’ll try that sometime. That’s weird.”

What’s truly weird, a New York Post writer suggests, is Diana Taurasi’s surprised reaction to the call on the court. “The league’s perennial leader in technical fouls is no stranger to being singled out by the officials. Taurasi led the WNBA in techs in five of the past six years.”

The show went on in postgame interviews, where Augustus said, “She just wanted some of my deliciousness.” And Taurasi told reporters, “We were just trying to make sweet love.”

They’re making people pay attention, that’s for sure. Game 2 is Sunday in Phoenix.