They can’t dog it on defense

The one-liners are nowhere to be found, the smiles few and far between.

A year ago, Lakers Coach Phil Jackson stood in front of reporters and proclaimed, “It’s hard out here for a pimp,” but the Lakers are running out of time for laugh-out-loud moments before Sunday’s first-round tipoff against the Denver Nuggets.

It appears they’re taking this top-seeded thing seriously.

It probably starts with concerns about their defense, and the fact that the Nuggets are extremely dangerous if their outside shots start falling.

There’s also a hint of an us-against-the-world mantra, a reminder that nobody picked the Lakers to be the top team in the West when the season began.

As such, Jackson started interspersing clips of the movie “Best in Show” into team video sessions, part of his annual tradition of adding humor and a theme to a particular playoff series. The comedy was based on a prestigious dog show, and Jackson presumably doesn’t want the Lakers to look like dogs against the Nuggets.

Along those lines, the contest in the movie was won by “Winky,” a mangy-looking member of the Norwich Terrier breed, perhaps a subtle suggestion from Jackson that the Lakers weren’t exactly the most prize-worthy team back in October.

Jackson also inserted some grainy clips of New York Knicks footage from back in his era as a player, an attempt to hammer home the importance of teamwork.

It seems to be working along defensive lines.

“We really have to get back [on defense] and not let their shooters spring free in the open court,” Kobe Bryant said.

The Lakers played one of their best halves of the season Sunday in limiting San Antonio to 32 second-half points in a 106-85 victory, but they’ll need more of it against the Nuggets, who averaged 110.7 points, second-best in the league.

The Lakers were 19th in the league on defense, giving up 101.3 points. They were particularly soft last month, yielding 106.7 points a game as injuries caught up with them, but they gave up only 96.4 points a game this month.

“I emphasized the point to them that this is really a proving point for our defense,” Jackson said. “It could be high-scoring, but there’s going to be a point in every game where we’re going to have to play some intense defense and get ourselves in position to provide stops so that we can have a chance to win.”

The Lakers are leaning toward having Bryant guard Allen Iverson, who averaged 26.4 points a game. They are also planning to have Vladimir Radmanovic guard Carmelo Anthony, who averaged 25.7 points.

Jordan Farmar played the role of Iverson at Friday’s practice, with Bryant gamely chasing him around the court.

The harder defensive assignment might belong to Radmanovic, who earned his place in the starting lineup by making 41.5% of his three-point attempts while averaging 11.1 points over his last 16 games. One thing he isn’t known for is intense defense.

Adding to the intrigue is that the Lakers aren’t as familiar with Anthony’s game this season for a slew of reasons.

The Lakers played the Nuggets only three times, one fewer than they played against most other West teams, and Anthony didn’t finish two of those games. He was ejected midway through the fourth quarter of one of them for hitting Sasha Vujacic in the throat, and he left the other game midway through the second quarter because of a sprained ankle.

“It’s definitely going to be challenging to guard somebody like Carmelo, but I’m ready for it,” Radmanovic said. “I watched the tapes and I’m getting prepared for him. We’ll see what happens out there.”

Either way, the Lakers are going with an even-keeled approach. Just ask veteran guard Derek Fisher.

“I think myself and Kobe and our coaching staff, with all the experience we have, I don’t think we’ll have a problem managing our team, managing our emotions,” he said.

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Jackson showed clips from “Hustle & Flow” before last season’s first-round series with Phoenix, to underline the importance of effort in an underdog role. Two years ago, he spliced cuts of “Inside Man” into video sessions, hitting on the theme of getting the ball down low to Kwame Brown against the undersized Suns. . . . The cost for the Pau Gasol trade became a little more crystallized when the regular season ended. The Lakers ended up with the 28th pick in the first round, which will be sent to Memphis as part of the deal. The Lakers will also send a first-round pick in 2010 to the Grizzlies. The Lakers have only a second-round selection, the 58th overall pick, in the June draft. . . . Bryant, on the pro-Lakers energy in Los Angeles these days: “There’s a lot of good buzz going on. People are honking their horns at me and screaming, going crazy, if I’m just stopping at a stoplight. It’s good.”

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Times staff writer Jonathan Abrams contributed to this report.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com