We went out to dinner at the invitation of my sister and her husband, who run a restaurant here in Long Beach, name of Lasher’s. Their son had graduated from middle school and, no, it’s not like getting out of college but it was a good excuse to get together on the patio on a mild June night.

The Lakers, of course, were playing Game 4 in the NBA Finals. When we got out of the car, they were down 20-15, according to Spero Dedes, and all three of their big guys were on the bench with two fouls, and I was thinking 1)  this isn’t going to turn out well and 2) that means I’m going to Game 6 at Staples Center on Tuesday.

And then we got on with the meal, a sort of tasting menu that contained the things my nephew likes best,  in a series of smallish portions. Fried-green tomatoes,  crab cakes, goat cheese with garlic on toast, salad with bleu cheese, beef Wellington, bread pudding ….

(Yes, an ambitious menu for a 14-year-old but, hey, his parents run a restaurant. He has an adult palate. )

Meantime, the game ground on … and we slowly became aware of it. Thanks to a 7-year-old.

That 7-year-old was my niece, a precocious kid who sees and hears everything. She also seemed to have grown bored while waiting for the next course and was prowling around her parents’ restaurant and, apparently, had gone into the little office in the back, a building separate from the restaurant, where the game was playing on a little TV.

My niece would appear now and then and announce the score. “It’s 23 to 34. They are behind.” “They” would be the Lakers. She liked having information she was pretty sure we would be interested in, and she seemed to have taken some pains to make sure she came out with facts she was sure about. No embellishing. She has the makings of a reporter, poor thing. She popped in every few minutes, with updates. At halftime she announced a score, with the Lakers down 12 and not scoring much. Hmm. Well.

We turned our attention to comparing a couple of red wines my sister had produced.

Things changed in the third quarter. As those of you who saw the game live would know. We began hearing muffled shouting. At first I thought it was a viewing party at one of the apartments up the street. Then my sister said no, it was from a nearby Irish bar. E.J. Malloy’s, a few storefronts up the street.

Fans in Long Beach yelling … well, that had to mean the Lakers were coming back. The 7-year-old went to check it out. She came back with the news the Lakers were down only one. I almost immediately thought of Game 4 last year. Lakers down 2-1 at home to the Celtics, a big lead (24, actually), they let the lead get away, the Celtics win, series all but done …

A bit later the 7-year-old came back. Lakers up five.

From then on, it was street noise that told us what was going on. Every time we heard a cheer, we figured the Lakers had scored. Whenever it went all still, and stayed that way for a few minutes, we knew the Magic was doing something. “It’s quiet. Too quiet.”

The 7-year-old reported Orlando up 4. It was getting late. She wasn’t so clear on the clock situation, but I knew by my watch it had to be in the final minutes. (It was a leisurely dinner.) And then there was a big cheer, and I decided it was time to go look at this myself.

I left the table (we were just finishing dessert, the bread pudding with a dollop of whipped cream and some raspberries), and went out the back door and into the little office where the game was on. Turns out the last cheer I heard was for a dunk by Pau Gasol with 31 seconds left to make it a three-point game, 87-84.

Just as I walked into the room I saw Dwight Howard falling to the ground, with Kobe Bryant beneath him, and I knew it was a foul. I glanced at the corner of the screen and saw that the clock was down to 11.1 seconds, and I knew Howard was shooting two, and I confided to the 7-year-old,  “well, they’re going to lose.”

But it was at that moment that “the coffee guy” came to the door, shortly after my sister had joined the group. He’d made a delivery. And he asked about the score. (Because everyone wants to know what the Lakers are doing. Even the “vampire coffee man,” as my sister calls him because he seems to work only at night.) I gave him the details, including the fact that Dwight Howard was at the line, and the coffee man said, with the matter-of-fact clarity startlingly common among the millions of generic Lakers fans in SoCal … “He could miss two.”

And clank, clank, there were two misses. “You jinxed him!” my sister said to the coffee guy, who smiled and walked off. A fan, but also a professional vampire coffee man, with other deliveries to make.

I left the TV. I didn’t need to see the next 10.8 seconds. Because either the Lakers would lose … and the lack of noise would tell me … or someone would make a three-pointer, which seemed unlikely (how could Orlando allow the Lakers to get a decent look from behind the arc?), and the fans on the patio at the Irish bar would erupt … and I would know.

Sure enough, about two minutes (commercials, apparently), a loud shout rang out, 10, 12 voices raised in a blurt of beery cheering. “Somebody made a three,” I announced. And a moment later the 7-year-old came out and confirmed it. “Derek Fisher,” she said, impressing me that she remembered his first name as well. And I said something like, “about time he made one.”

Eventually, a minute and change into overtime, about five of us crowded into the little office building (probably in violation of some fire marshal’s code) and watched the end. Kobe Bryant made a tough field goal. The Lakers kept getting stops … and then Kobe threw it out to Fisher at the top of the key and he bombed in another three, and broke out a wide smile. He said, later, he was smiling because it felt “like a dagger,” which was interesting, because they led only 94-91 and there were 31 seconds left. But he was right. The Magic seemed in a collective panic, failing to run anything that resembled an offense, casting off bad shots, not scoring … and it ended 99-91.

So, yeah, maybe this is the way to watch the NBA Finals. Follow the start, get a feel how it’s going. Have a nice dinner, let a little kid come give you updates for the next two hours. Let the shouting in the neighborhood tell you if the Lakers are close or ahead … and then go see the end.

OK, yeah, I’ve watched the highlights on TV, and we had recorded the first 2:30 of the game — which got us only halfway through the fourth quarter, but we saw Trevor Ariza go off in the third quarter, anyway.

We got more accomplished this way. A nice dinner, some friendly chatting, a whole lot of missed commercials … and into the office to see the end. Pretty handy. Maybe we should try it again on Sunday. But I don’t think anyone is graduating that day.