Miller’s career day helps Nottingham cruise to win over Willingboro
HAMILTON >> With a three-pronged scoring attack of Donte Alexander, Dom Raymond and Jordan Raba, the Nottingham High boys basketball team doesn’t seem to need a lot more on offense.
But Jahmere Miller provided it Saturday by scoring a career-high 17 points in just three quarters to help the Northstars to a 78-51 victory over Willingboro.
“Jahmere is a beast,” said Raymond, who had 22 points and nine rebounds. “He worked his butt off this game. Even in the summer he worked.”
The senior forward made his first six shots and finished 8-for-9 while also collecting six rebounds, a blocked shot and two assists.
“I’m not really a scorer, I’m more of a defender but my coach (Chris Raba) has been telling me I gotta score to open up the defense,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been doing.”
He opened things up against the Chimeras (1-1), paving the way for Raba to score 14, Alexander to get 11 and Matt Juliano to tie a career high with 10.
“A big shout out to Jordan, Donte, Matt, Mike (Charles),” Raymond said. “Everyone played their part today.”
Miller scored eight in the first quarter to help the Northstars to a 23-16 lead. He did not force anything, just taking what was there.
“I’m more of a pass-first person and if it’s open I’ll shoot it,” he said. “They don’t look at me to score the ball, so when I do score, they’re surprised.”
Miller admitted the temptation is there to shoot more when the ball is going in, saying with a grin, “Yeah, it’s fun.”
The game itself was fun for the Northstars (2-0), who were never able to put away West Windsor-Plainsboro North on Thursday night despite opening several nice leads. It looked like more of the same against Willingboro when a 10-0 lead got cut to 20-16, but Alexander’s 3-pointer to end the first quarter ignited a 15-0 run.
The Boro got just one basket in the second quarter and Nottingham closed with an 8-0 spurt to open a 43-18 halftime lead.
“Most of the time we set the tone but tend to let teams get back in the game,” Miller said. “We had to set the tone from the start and continue on.”
Once they took control, Nottingham became focused on running things correctly at both ends of the court.
“We’re mainly worried about getting in our offense,” Miller said. “These are games we want to test our offensive things.”
But it’s always defense-first for Nottingham, which was the key to its second-quarter explosion. Willingboro shot just 1-for-8 in the period and committed eight turnovers.
“Coach Raba said defense is our main priority,” Raymond said. “Defense will get you offensive scoring. Defense is the first thing we care about, so we turned it around with defense.”
And it definitely led to offense, as Nottingham finished the half shooting 17for-25 (68 percent). Some of that came on transition. Some came from looking for each other.
“We played an unselfish game,” Miller said. “That’s why we did so good. We have a big emphasis on that.”
When it comes to unselfishness, Raymond is a poster boy. He took just two shots in the first quarter and squeezed all his points within the second and third.
“I just want to feed my teammates first,” he said. “I respect them a lot. I want them to get their points. I don’t care how many points I score. As long as we get the win, that’s all I care about.”