So I'm sitting in my house, watching Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. Well, that's not exactly true. I was standing. I couldn't sit. It was too exciting.

That is why we put up with athletes making $100 gazillion a year, and why we cheer players who were let out of the clink earlier that day for some malfeasance, and why we wade through 59-52 clunkers in the middle of February, to get to games like Sunday evening's affair between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings.

	It's doubtful Nets-Lakers will give us thrills like Lakers-Kings did.

And so, no, I was not sitting, I was standing, I was bouncing off the walls anticipating the outcome. I nearly tackled my wife when she walked into the room.

Then Derek Fisher hit that 3-pointer from the top of the key in the fourth quarter, and over the very loud volume of my television set, turned up full blast to make it feel like Arco Arena, I literally hear a neighbor several houses away let go a primal scream.

First, I thought he was beating his kids. After all, he has a six-pound dog named Killer.

But then when the Lakers continued to make plays, and his kids started screaming as well, I realized I had a Lakers-loving family just down the street from me, and they were not ashamed to let the entire neighborhood know -- except for the 134-year-old couple next door who couldn't hear a cowbell if it was wrapped around Bessie stomping through their living room.

And this morning? I'm depressed.

The season's not over. There's more basketball to be played. The Super Bowl is still a few days away.

And, yet, I think that I won't sense that type of anticipation, of excitement, again this year.

Lakers vs. Nets. Ho hum.

Come to think of it, my depression started when I saw Kobe Bryant shamelessly hawking that soft drink in a green can while Jim Gray was interviewing him. Dude, just enjoy the moment. Stop being such a corporate slave. I just hope Kobe was goofing and was not serious.

My depression continued when the Kings owners, the Maloofs, were being interviewed outside the locker room, and agent David Falk is right there with them, bending their ears not even five minutes after the most devastating defeat in franchise history. Dude, back off. Give them some room to breathe.

And I had to turn the television off altogether when Gray pulled aside Brian Shaw and finally Samaki Walker to interview them. Jim, I realize you are trying to "seize the moment" because 50 trillion people are watching one of the best series in recent memory, but, c'mon, Samaki Walker? He didn't even play.

Of course, when I turned off the television, my neighbors were still yelling. I'm afraid they're done 'til next season.

This is not to say the Nets are not going to make it somewhat interesting. In fact, I think they are going to make it more interesting than the Sixers did last season.

If the Kings series showed us anything at all about the Lakers, it's that they are at least flawed. Unlike last season, when they rolled through the playoffs like Rommel in North Africa, this season they have, to quote Matt Dillon, "chinks in the armor."

Their perimeter defense is suspect, particularly against a point guard who can shoot like Mike Bibby. Unfortunately, Jason Kidd does not have the same shooting touch Bibby possesses.

	The other thing that I think was a mistake was Lakers coach Phil Jackson so blatantly flaunting the West's domination of the game. Yes, he is correct that the winner of the Lakers-Kings series is going to win the NBA Finals, but it puts his players in the immediate mindframe that they don't have to go out and take the Nets series as seriously as they did the Kings.

But there is a good reason Kidd was runner-up to Tim Duncan in MVP voting, and where he won't hit a batch of jump shots that make the Lakers look ultra-vulnerable, he will find the person who can, or at least somebody like Todd MacCulloch -- who's going to his second consecutive Finals series -- close enough to the basket to lay it in.

The Lakers also were not great at defending the pick-and-roll, and Kidd can run that with any number of teammates who are capable of finishing -- Keith Van Horn, Kenyon Martin and MacCulloch.

But the thing that Kidd is able to do better than anybody is push the basketball. He applied constant pressure in the Eastern Conference finals, where Boston had to worry as much about getting back after they shot as they did about the shot itself. You thought L.A.'s 3-point shooting was abominable against the Kings, wait until they play against a Nets team that is in constant fast-break mode because of Kidd, who rebounds better than any guard in the game.

"What J-Kidd's the best in the league at is pushing the ball right at you," Lakers assistant Jim Cleamons told ESPN.com's Mitch Lawrence. "So we have to get back in transition defense. He's got (Kerry) Kittles on one side and Martin on the other. They're excellent running the lane. Our transition defense was pretty good in (the Kings) series, but it will have to be even better. And I see that Jason's really been a great late-game shooter for them."

The other thing that I think was a mistake was Lakers coach Phil Jackson so blatantly flaunting the West's domination of the game. Yes, he is correct that the winner of the Lakers-Kings series is going to win the NBA Finals, but it puts his players in the immediate mindframe that they don't have to go out and take the Nets series as seriously as they did the Kings. And I would think there is the natural inclination to have a letdown in intensity after a series as hotly contested as the last one.

All of this is to say that the Nets are probably going to steal a game, maybe two, from the Lakers in the Finals.

But I don't think it's going to bring me and my neighbors together for any wild viewing parties. That'll have to wait until next year, when the Kings try to take the next step.

Frank Hughes, who covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.