CARACAS, Venezuela — Patrick Ewing Jr, the offspring of the legendary New York Knicks basketball player, made a long-awaited appearance at the FIBA Americas Championship on Monday, but it ended in frustration for Jamaica as they lost 82-88 to tournament favourites Puerto Rico.

The Jamaicans, who trailed by as many as 19 points in the riveting clash before going on a run that had them leading by five in the final quarter, faltered near the end to miss out on a first win in the competition.

The 29-year-old Ewing, still recovering from a shoulder sprain suffered in training before the start of the tournament, was brought into the game late in the third quarter, as the Jamaicans impressively reeled in the experienced Puerto Rico unit.

Four missed jump shots, two assists and a pair of rebounds in 17 minutes appear paltry for a player of his calibre, but the forward aided the Jamaicans’ defensive organisation as they battled tooth and nail.

The six-foot nine-inch tower said he did his “best”, given the discomfort in his shoulder.

“It didn’t feel great, which is why I didn’t shoot so well. I tended to favour it a little bit, but coach (Sam Vincent) just said ‘just go out there and whatever you can bring, just bring it’. I felt like I owed it to these guys to go out there and help in any capacity, so I went out and played my best.

“Obviously I didn’t play as well as I would have if I had two good arms, but I felt like just talking and being there defensively would help. I was picking guys up and making sure we prevented guys from getting off shots,” Ewing explained to the Jamaica Observer after the match.

It was the JamRockerZ’ third straight loss after previous defeats to Canada and Uruguay, and it left them needing to beat Brazil yesterday to have a chance to remain in the competition.

There were plenty of encouraging signs for Jamaica on Monday, but Ewing is calling for even more improvement from his teammates.

“It was disappointing. For me I want to win every game, but still we have to take something from it. We were down 15 [points at half time] and I felt like we fought really hard and got the lead.

“Then it slipped out of our hands. We have a lot of work to do in terms of not letting games slip out of our hands and certainly we don’t want to be down 15 points again. We have to stay closer to teams,” he said.

The top quartet in each of the two groups will advance to the second round, which starts on Thursday.

The four semi-finalists at this Championship automatically advance to the FIBA World Cup next year in Spain.