BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 5 : At Last, Bird Shows His Best : Basketball: He scores 19 points in 111-68 victory over Germany. Magic sits out and Jordan plays point guard.

Watch closely, U.S. players tell themselves, this could be the last of Larry Bird.

Until Wednesday, all the Olympics had seen of him was a creaky old man with a sore back, but for a brief and shining moment he was Larry Legend again, scoring 19 points, hitting three three-point baskets and tossing blind passes as the U.S. basketball team routed Germany, 111-68.

“We joke about it all the time,” Michael Jordan said. “But one of the reasons I’m on this team, I never had the opportunity to play with Larry, except for All-Star games.

“This might be his last hurrah. I think everybody should realize that. We as players cherish the time we spend with him.”

Bird, pained at his injury limitations, jokes about it, too.

“I’ve been retired for four years,” he said recently, “and nobody knows it yet.”

Germany scored the first basket, but the United States went on a 47-10 run to settle what issue there was before halftime.

Of course, the United States wasn’t at its best.

The Americans were out of point guards, with Magic Johnson resting his strained right knee and John Stockton still limping.

Jordan, the new point guard, was coming off 18 holes of golf in the near 100-degree heat.

Jordan’s average is 27 holes before a game. He handled point guard without a problem.

“Well, who didn’t know that?” Coach Chuck Daly asked. “The man can play any position.

“I’m a little worried that we keep losing the opening tip. We might have him jump center. I said all along, Chicago should be penalized. They should have to play four on five when he’s on the floor.”

The Germans were tall, but that’s all. They had Detlef Schrempf and three players 6 feet 11 or taller, but they said freely beforehand they knew they couldn’t win this game.

“We were scared in the beginning,” said guard Henrik Rodl, a senior at North Carolina. “The longer the game went on, the more we settled down. The longer the game went on, the longer I wanted it to go on.

“For me, it was an honor to play against them.

“I think their guys are having a good time with each other, the best in the world together. I don’t know if they’re having a good time beating teams by 60 points. You’ll have to ask them.”

Well, nobody’s complaining.

The Americans’ only problem was getting excited.

They bristled before their first game when they heard that Angola’s coach said they couldn’t play defense.

In their second game, they wanted a piece of Toni Kukoc, who once inconvenienced Scottie Pippen, sort of.

They didn’t know anything bad about the Germans and were forced to play without malice in their hearts.

If you suspect this offense-taking is deliberate, you’re right.

Why should they care what some coach from another country thinks of their defense?

“We love that,” Johnson said. “We need that. Some times you need to get ruffled a little bit.”

Good news: Brazil, their next opponent, actually insulted them in Portland, where guard Marcel Souza said they ought to stop playing golf the day of the game and get serious.

“Somebody gave me wrong information,” Karl Malone said. “I thought it was Oscar Schmidt. I’ve been telling everybody Oscar said it.

“At this point, it doesn’t really matter, We’re going to act like everybody said it.”

Basketball Notes

Magic Johnson is still listed as day to day, but Charles Barkley says he thinks Johnson will sit out Friday’s game. “Magic hasn’t improved as much as we’d like,” Barkley said. “I wouldn’t rush him back. It’s more important to have him next week.” . . . Chuck Daly, on finding backups for Michael Jordan at point guard: “We were considering using Charles, but he doesn’t know enough about the offense.” . . . Learning the international game the hard way, Barkley drew a warning for hanging on the rim. In two games before Wednesday, he has been called for an elbowing foul and got a technical foul for talking to the crowd.