Those Argentina legs still looked young while running past Lithuania.
Luis Scola scored 32 points, Manu Ginobili had 21 points, 10 rebounds and six assists a day after turning 35, and Argentina opened the Olympic men's basketball tournament with a 102-79 victory on Sunday night.
Playing poorly by their standards during exhibition play and considered too old by many others to be viewed as a top medal threat anymore, the Argentines denied wanting to use their opener to send any kind of message.
''I think the message is that we are old but we can play, something like that,'' said Scola, now with the Phoenix Suns.
''We didn't want to show nothing to nobody. We weren't playing well in the preparation. We weren't feeling well, we got this feeling that it's not going well, we need to do something, we've got to play better, we've got to move faster, we've got to have a little bit more of a spark, so we needed to have this game.''
Carlos Delfino finished with 20 points for the Argentines in a rematch of their 87-75 victory over Lithuania in the bronze-medal game four years ago in Beijing.
It was an impressive start for the 2004 gold medalists, who have faced questions if the run is over for the ''Golden Generation'' that has been an international power for the last decade.
That certainly seemed the case two years ago in the quarterfinals of the World Championship, when Lithuania rolled by Argentina in a 104-85 victory. Lithuania hit nine of its first 11 3-pointers and sent Argentina to its earliest exit at a major tournament since 2000.
''We remembered the game in Turkey, quarterfinal in Turkey that day, first quarter they killed us,'' said 35-year-old, New York Knicks-bound point guard Pablo Prigioni. ''So we have that game in our head and we go on the court thinking that that cannot happen.''
But Ginobili didn't play in that tournament and having him back now gives Argentina the inside-out tandem of Scola and Ginobili that has combined for so many international victories.
Scola and other several other key players are in their 30s, though looked in top condition while breaking open the game over the middle two quarters and even occasionally - though not often - managing to somewhat quiet the cheering, chanting Lithuania crowd that began making noise even before the previous game at the Basketball Arena was over.
''I felt very good,'' said Ginobili, set to face San Antonio Spurs teammate Tony Parker of France on Tuesday. ''Of course the adrenaline at the beginning of an Olympic games kind of makes you forget everything, the aches, the pain and age. So felt very energetic, very proud of my teammates. It was a wonderful game.''
Linas Kleiza, who plays with the Toronto Raptors, scored 20 for Lithuania.
Up 24-23 after one, Argentina got hot from the 3-point line and scored 27 points in the second quarter, taking a 51-39 lead into halftime on Delfino's 3-pointer as time expired. The Argentines then scored seven in a row, Delfino and Ginobili making layups before Delfino buried a 3-pointer, extending a 13-point cushion to 63-43 with 6:51 remaining in the third.
The Argentines gave the U.S. a good test in an exhibition game last week in Barcelona, Spain, trimming an early 20-point deficit to four in the final minutes before falling 86-80, and hopes to have locked up a quarterfinal berth before the teams meet again next Monday in their final game of Group A play. They face another tough opponent Tuesday in France, with Ginobili joking he would tell his teammates to fog up the goggles that Spurs teammate Tony Parker is wearing to protect a recent eye injury.
Argentina and Lithuania met in their opener for the second straight Olympics. Lithuania won 79-75 to start things in Beijing but never could slow down Argentina in this one.
