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Basketball-Mills taps Australian heartland for Rio inspiration

(Repeats interview first run on July 11)

MELBOURNE, July 25 (Reuters) - Basketballer Patty Mills will don the green and gold of Australia at the Rio de Janeiro Games but gained inspiration for his third Olympics in the red dust of his country's vast, empty heartland.

The first indigenous Australian to win an NBA title, the San Antonio Spurs point guard will hope to blaze a new trail in Rio by becoming the first to win an Olympic medal in the sport.

But for 27-year-old Mills, a recent trip out to Uluru, the massive red rock that rises improbably out of the central Australian desert, was all about the team.