BASKETBALL - Inspiration, passion can help Hawks upset Pistons

THE QUESTION stumps Miles Pearce after all these years but he's itching to find the answer from his mother when she visits him in Hawke's Bay in the next few weeks.
Why did Marlene Pearce put his name on a New Zealand passport when the 0800 Easy LPG Hawks basketballer was born in Australia 30 years ago?
It's not that the former Tall Black has a beef with her. On the contrary, he's been counting his lucky stars she did.
"I want to say thank you to her because I ended up coming and playing here [New Zealand]," the former Tall Black told SportToday before tomorrow's 7pm National Basketball League tip-off against defending champions Waikato Pistons at the Pettigrew-Green Arena, in Taradale, Napier.
"Mum was born in Te Awamutu, near Waikato, so Friday night's game [will] be interesting because the family bloodline runs through there," he says with a chuckle, clarifying his 1.93m tall parent still lives in the Central Coast, New South Wales, home he was born in, about an hour's drive from Sydney.
His father, Gervase, was tall timber too so he and brother Brook, 27, have been blessed with that side of the dominant genes although sister Bryar, at 1.79m, cops a bit of flak from them for having the recessive one.
"If you're not more than six feet tall in the family then it's definitely considered a disease in the family."
Their father's smorgasbord of ethnicities - African, Chinese, French, Portuguese and English - means they are a "mixed bag".
"If you name a nation, you'll find I belong to it," Pearce says.
Unlike the rash of "dream-come-true" elite basketballers who yearned to don a Tall Blacks shirt and play professionally, the 2.06m forward/centre had no aspirations of carving a niche in that arena as a child.
In fact, he grew up sailing in summer and playing hockey in winter.
"I never wanted to be a basketballer but, because I'm tall, everyone assumed that's what I'd be."
A friend asked him to go to a gym to play basketball when he was 16 to keep trim and the former NSW age-group representative, to his coaches' dismay, never picked up a hockey stick or trimmed a gib again.
"It's definitely more fun playing basketball ... I'm 30 now and I've been playing professionally since I was 20," says the former Australian National Basketball League (ANBL) player who is mindful that brother Brook (ex-Manawatu Jets and Otago Nuggets player) retired last year from basketball and is working with special needs people in Sydney.
"He chose a real job whereas I chose to chase a basketball for a living," says Pearce, who has played for the Jets and Nuggets in the NBL and the Victoria Giants, Brisbane Bullets and West Sydney Razorbacks in the ANBL. His nomadic lifestyle has taken him to Germany, a college in the United States, Brunei and Singapore.
So does he consider himself a journeyman?
"A lot of players want to be close to home and all that but, for me, it's never been an issue. I don't get homesick or anything. I just pack up my bags and go on a whim."
Not knowing where he'll be next season does not help with the rapport he has with girlfriend Lucy Dunwell, who lives in Sydney, but they are "working on it".
She came and stayed with me when I was playing for the Nuggets but I don't expect her to leave her job or anything because it's not fair on her."
In his tumultuous years as a teenager, Pearce found a great ally in the sports code and music when things did not make much sense.
He even dabbles in disc jockeying and is excited a friend, Matt Goddard (alias DJ Dopamine) has a contract with the Lot 49 Label in the United Kingdom and he may join him on a US tour to Los Angeles and Las Vegas this year. He's named after US trumpeter Miles Davis and brother Brook after jazz musician Brook Benton.
But right now he's preoccupied with the task at hand - getting the Hawks into the play-offs.
"I love being in the Bay. JayB [Hawks franchise co-owner Jeremy Bayliss] and [coach] Shawn [Dennis] have a great programme here and the weather is definitely better than Palmy North and Otago."
There's a brief sense of resignation in his voice about last Friday night's mediocre effort in their away loss to the Jets but he follows that up with a mental fortitude that lifts his mood.
"Nelson and Waikato have lost too so any team can beat anyone anytime so we have to play no matter what," says Pearce who sees himself as a smash-and-bash man who raises the intensity of the game from the bench so US imports John Thomas and Charles Bailey can suck it in a little.
For the uninitiated, an energetic Pearce, who the Jets sent packing last season "for not fitting into the team culture", leaves behind a void on court as if to suggest coach Dennis needs to give him more game time.
"To put it nicely the coach [Tim McTamney] and I had some differences. He thought he was a good coach and I didn't. After playing for Shawn and with various other coaches in Australia I'm convinced of that.
"I suppose my mouth got me into trouble too but I know one day it'll get me out of trouble too."
The 2004-05 Tall Black, who relished playing against his former NSW age-group teammates cum Boomers such John Rillie and Matt Neilson in the 2006 test matches, has no qualms about his pick-me-up role with the Hawks.
For someone who has made the starting five in other franchises, Pearce feels the Pistons tomorrow night will be buoyed by the likes of US imports Adam Ballinger, ex-Tall Black captain Pero Cameron and ex-Nugget point guard Justin Bailey.
"They are definitely a top-four play-offs team," he says of the visitors who boast ex-Hawk and 170-plus game veteran Puke Lenden.
The Hawks' job of making that cut has become taller after last week's stumble in Palmy North but, as they showed against the Giants here several weeks ago, all it takes is a dose of inspiration and passion from the likes of Pearce to upset the apple cart.