For Tony Rampton, it's personal.

While the assistant coach of the Nelson Giants will be willing his side to a third straight victory in the national basketball league, Rampton has another reason to be backing the Giants to beat Taranaki on Saturday.

The Trafalgar Centre game also doubles as a challenge for the Brian Rampton Memorial Trophy, a cup contested between the two provincial clubs to honour the memory of Tony's late father. Tony and his younger brother, Damon, turned out for both Nelson and Taranaki in their NBL careers and New Plymouth basketball identity John Kensington proposed the idea of a trophy to mark the Rampton family's connections with both clubs.

The Giants hadn't let it out of their sights, either, until this season.

A miserable 89-71 loss on the road at the start of the season saw the MountainAirs take hold of the trophy, a situation Rampton would like to see reversed on the Giants' home court this weekend.

"The trophy is something our family values highly, it's special to us and I'd love to see it back here in Nelson," he said.

"Taranaki got us good when we were up there and earned the right to have the cup but I'll be giving the boys a bit of a pep talk on Saturday along the lines of how much that trophy means to me, personally."

Given how the respective teams are travelling in recent rounds, the Giants should have a decent shot at bringing "Brian" back to Nelson. Nelson have won three of their last four, including wins over Bartercard NBL league-leading teams Hawke's Bay and Wellington. Taranaki dropped both games on the dreaded southern swing through Dunedin and Invercargill last week, although their total margin of defeat was just six points.

The MountainAirs boast the league's leading scorer – guard Jack Leasure is good for 22 points on an average evening – alongside 2.13m centre Marcus Campbell and mountain warrior Aaron Bailey-Nowell.

"They haven't got much depth but we need to be wary of how good those three guys are," Rampton said. "If we walk into the gym just expecting to pick up a win, they are good enough and hungry enough to make life tough.

"We simply have to maintain the level of defence and rebounding we've showed against the top teams in the last two weeks and take care of business."

Rampton admits that his shift from last season's starting centre to becoming head coach Chris Tupu's extra eyes and ears has been more challenging than he'd thought when he volunteered his help.

After last week's win over the Bay Hawks, Rampton was sweat-soaked and bone-weary.

"It's an emotional ride and I am still learning to manage my competitive side and just focus on helping Toops with the things I see during a game.

"It's as hard as playing, in a different way, because you can see what needs to be done but can't physically make that happen."

He takes some satisfaction from the way the Giants have turned around a 0-3 start, though.

If they can win on Saturday, they will be 5-5 and right in the midst of the playoff mix and eyeing the chance to host a home court quarterfinal.

"Some things had to be said that maybe players didn't want to hear but, to their credit, they have bought into the bigger plan," he said.

"When we stick with what we believe is the best use of the players we have, things have started to come together really nicely and all the credit for that goes to the boys themselves."

National league basketball, Fico Finance Nelson Giants versus Taranaki MountainAirs, Trafalgar Centre, 7pm Saturday.

- The Nelson Mail