The peaceful silence that permeated the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo on Tuesday will soon end. Once training camp starts in three weeks, bruising bodies, attentive minds and squeaking shoes will fill the Lakers’ gym.

Will that mark the beginning of the Lakers cleansing the odor of last season’s stench that entailed finishing with their worst record in L.A. franchise history? Byron Scott believes so, determined that his dream job as the Lakers’ coach will coincide with returning the franchise to the way he remembers it when he won three championships as a player during the beloved “Showtime Era.”

“I’m going to walk into our locker room the first day of our meeting and say, ‘I want to win a championship,’” Scott said Tuesday, sitting on the Lakers’ practice court that oversees their title banners. “I don’t want us thinking it’s fine if we just make the playoffs or think we have no shot at making the playoffs. I don’t believe that. I want our guys to have the same mindset as I do.”

Rebuttals await. Bovada, a gambling Web site, tabs the Lakers as 66-1 favorites to collect their 17th NBA title. ESPN.com predicted the Lakers will finish 12th overall in a Western Conference that Scott believes will feature playoff teams finishing with at least 45 wins.

Meanwhile, the Lakers struck out on the LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony free agency sweepstakes. They lost Pau Gasol. Questions persist on whether Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash can play a full season after appearing last season in a combined 21 games amid persisting injuries.

Yet, Scott offered positive assessments on Bryant’s left knee and Nash’s back after working out at the Lakers’ facility in recent weeks.

“He’s gotten older, but can still get it done,” Scott said of the 36-year-old Bryant. “I see a guy who’s going to average 20-something points per game, will have a great year and have a lot of people eating crow.”

Scott waxed nostalgic about mentoring Bryant during his rookie season with the Lakers in 1996-97. Scott hopes that equity built through 18 years will lead to a prolific coaching-player partnership.

Scott plans to feature Bryant more in the post and along the elbows in a system featuring pick-and-roll sets and elements of the Princeton offense. Scott downplayed concerns over the Lakers struggling to learn that system under Mike Brown two years ago, saying his version of the Princeton offense bodes similar to the triangle system the Lakers once ran under Phil Jackson.

Yet, Scott cautioned he will handle Bryant with care, including sitting him out of select practices and possibly back-to-back games.

“I know how stubborn he is and he knows how stubborn I am,” Scott said. “There’s going to be times we’re butting heads. But it’s all because we want to win.”

Scott suggested he will follow a similar approach with the 40-year-old Nash, who sat out last season on the second night of back-to-backs. Nash has also sounded publicly amenable toward playing limited minutes even as a reserve.

As for Bryant? Although averaging only 29.6 minutes last season through six games, Bryant logged 38 minutes per game the previous two seasons. Both Brown and Mike D’Antoni reluctantly nixed their hopes on limiting Bryant since the Lakers’ success largely hinged on him.

“One thing I’ll never do is sacrifice a players’ health for a basketball game,” said Scott, who declined to specifiy how many minutes Bryant will play. “If it can hurt him in the long run, I won’t do it.”

What if Bryant checks himself into the game?

“I might have to tackle him and hold him back,” Scott joked. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do that anymore. But I’ll have to get one of the coaches to come with me and grab him and hold him back. I know how competitive he is. But for me, I’m looking out for him.”

The Lakers’ success will not just rest on Bryant’s effectiveness and health. They also must fix a defense that ranked 29th in points allowed (109.2), 24th in defensive field goal percentage (46.8) and 30th in fast-break points allowed (16.7).

““At times, I saw good rotations. At times, I saw bad rotations,” said Scott, who worked last year for Time Warner Cable SportsNet as a studio analyst. “A lot of that was they didn’t have a specific game plan on what they wanted to do on that end of the floor.”

Still, D’Antoni oversaw a roster that sat out a combined 319 games because of injuries. D’Antoni often lamented about the team’s inconsistent defensive hustle.

“No disrespect to Mike at all. I think Mike’s a good coach,” Scott said. “But in this league, if you want to win on a consistent basis and win championships, you have to play defense consistently.”

Meanwhile, Scott coached a top-ranked defensive team with the New Jersey Nets (2000-04) and a top-10 defensive team with the New Orleans Hornets (2004-2008). But he also oversaw the Cleveland Cavaliers finishing 26th or worse in total defense through three seasons.

How will the Lakers play on defense?

“I don’t know yet, but I know we have a bunch of good veterans and we have some young guys who can learn the system real quickly,” said Scott, whose assistants will include Jim Eyen, Paul Pressey, Mark Madsen, Larry Lewis, his son, Thomas, and one more undetermined candidate. “It really depends on how fast we can gel together. But I look at the personnel we have around and I think it’s a lot better than people give us credit for.”

Scott will spend training camp figuring out his starting lineup, which he says will currently feature Nash, Bryant, Carlos Boozer and Jordan Hill. He is leaning toward starting Wesley Johnson at small forward because of his defensive potential and relying on Nick Young’s prolific scoring off the bench. Scott also reported Xavier Henry has not fully recovered from left wrist and right knee injuries.

Scott will then add plenty of drills catered to the Lakers’ conditioning and defense, something so intense Scott will place four trash cans in each corner of the court. Said Scott: “I don’t want guys throwing up on my floor.”

Instead, he wants players rising above the circumstances that make the Lakers’ quest to return to championship glory pretty daunting.

“I was here for so many years when it was at its highest where every year we thought about championships. Coming back, it’s not that way,” Scott said. “But that’s the way I think and the way (Kobe) thinks. I’m sure when he’s looking down on us, that’s the way Dr. Jerry Buss thinks. That’s where we have to get back to.”

Shortly after, Scott rose from his chair and walked back up toward his office. Plenty of work awaits.