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TSN Raptors Reporter

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MEXICO CITY - Luis Scola, Argentina's ageless wonder, was all smiles after his team's 94-87 upset win over Canada.

The 35-year-old forward was excited to see a TSN mic held up to his face in the Mixed Zone, where players from both teams pass through on their way back to the locker room.

Scola will suit up for the Raptors this coming season, his ninth in the NBA, and his family is just getting settled in Toronto, having arrived there yesterday. His kids were looking forward to watching Tuesday's game amongst the Canadians, but he had cautioned them not to cheer Argentina on too loudly.

Was he feeling pressure to put on a show for them?

He chuckled. Pressure? Scola? Come on.

The veteran opened the game shooting 2-for-9. He missed a wide open dunk in transition and shot two air balls. It was a strange site to behold. Scola has medaled seven times at the FIBA Americas Championship, including two golds, and has won three tournament MVP awards.

Always cool as a cucumber, the Argentine kept firing away and by the third quarter he was carrying the team on his broad shoulders, picking Canada apart and giving them a not-so-warm welcome to an event that might as well put his face on the trophy.

The Canadian team, compiled of eight players with NBA experience, showed up with their heads held high, confident and feeling good about themselves after winning silver at the Pan Am Games and going 4-0 in their exhibition tournament. They left humbled. Maybe this isn't as easy as they thought it would be.

The lesson that Scola and company were more than happy to teach them: talent only gets you so far; experience takes you the rest of the way.

"Nobody is invincible," said Scola, who scored 35 points and grabbed 13 rebounds for his second double-double in as many days to open the Olympic qualifying tournament. "Canada is not invincible, we proved that today. But they're still contenders. Nothing's changed."

No, it's not the end of the world, provided Canada uses their opening day loss as a reality check.

"It's probably a good wake-up call for us, that this happened now," said sharpshooter Brady Heslip. "The guys that haven't been down here before, they'll see there are not going to be any easy games."

"We knew it was going to be a competitive game," Cory Joseph added. "We feel like they out-played us, simple as that. They got to more 50-50 balls. They out-played us, every single one of us and that's why they won."

"It's a good experience for us," head coach Jay Triano said. "I thought they controlled the game. It's not the outcome we wanted. We beat them the last two times we played them, we beat them a week ago, but, this is the one that matters and they were more up to the task than we were today."

Whether they took themselves out of the game, or the Argentines deserve credit for that - it was a bit of both, for the record - Canada lost their identity. Their defence, particularly in the lane and around the bucket, looked nothing like it did in Puerto Rico last week. They lost control of the tempo, were out-worked on the boards, and failed to get their best player, Andrew Wiggins, involved outside of a 2-3 minute stretch to begin the third quarter.

Meanwhile, they had no answer for Argentina's star player. Triano threw four or five different defenders at Scola, each more overwhelmed than the last. Scola's post-game demeanour, jovial and loose, was consistent with the way he and his team played from start to finish. Canada, on the other hand, looked tight and tentative.

"We were supposed to be the aggressors and dictate how we wanted them to play," Heslip said. "From the get-go, they got the ball where they wanted to, to who they wanted to. It was more of a physical game, and that's not what we wanted."

"We have to play free," Triano echoed. "I think we were real hesitant today... Maybe it was the importance of the game, maybe it was because it was the first game, but we just seemed very hesitant compared to the way we were playing."

Before even playing a game, Canada had been the talk of the tournament. Dubbed the team to beat, based mostly on their depth and talent, they knew the competition would be gunning for them.

All 10 teams are staying at the same hotel, all of them eat their meals together, cafeteria-style. They haven't been making many friends. Allegedly, some of the opposing players have been ribbing the Canadian team for traveling with extra security, implying they're soft.

Not every team they face will be as good, as experienced as Argentina. Not all of them will have a Scola to lean on. But whether they're facing the tournament's elite or a weaker team like Cuba - Wednesday's opponent - they can count on getting the opposition's best shot. They have to be better prepared to fight back.

"They're young players," Triano reiterated after the game. "I think people forget we're a fairly young team, we're fairly new at this, so this is a good growing experience for us. I didn't hear that we were projected to be the favourites. I knew that after we played well in Puerto Rico that teams would be looking forward to playing us, but obviously we have to be better, making better decisions."