Sacramento's Evans scored 26 points, San Antonio's Blair powered for 22 and 23 rebounds on Friday night as the first-year classsnapped a seven-game slide against the second-year stars, with a140-128 victory in the Rookie Challenge, tipping off the NBA All-Star Weekend in Dallas.
"The game plan was for us to get rebounds and get going," Evanssaid. "DeJuan said he was going to try to grab every rebound and he did a good job at it. We did the right thing, we ran and we gunned." Evans was voted most valuable player by fans, but in a classy move the point guard shared the trophy with Blair.
"I thought we both played an outstanding game," said Evans, who hit 11-of-15 floor shots, grabbed six boards and handed out five assists. "I set the tone early, but DeJuan finished it. He had 22 points and 23 rebounds. That's just amazing." Blair, an undersized 6-foot-7 power forward was a monster on the boards, gobbling up nearly every rebound he could get to.
"I knew what I had to do for my team to win," he said. "I did it, and we did a good job." Milwaukee's Brandon Jennings and Oklahoma City's James Harden netted 22 points apiece as the rookies won for the first time since 2002.
Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook scored 40 points, while Miami's Michael Beasley added 26 for the sophomores, who despite losing still have an 8-3 stranglehold in the series since the format was changed in 2000.
"We had a fun time," said Westbrook, who fell six points short of matching last year's record set by Thunder teammate Kevin Durant.
"Everybody did a good job of competing, and everybody did a good job of playing together, so it was fun." With Evans pushing the ball, the fast-breaking rookies closed the first half on a 16-4 run, to take a 67-55 cushion into the locker room.
During the break, Toronto's DeMar DeRozan won 61 per cent of the fan-voting to beat out Eric Gordon of the LA Clippers in the inaugural All-Star Slam Dunk-In.
The high-flying Raptor joined two-time defending champion Nate Robinson of New York, Charlotte's Gerald Wallace, and LA Lakers' Shannon Brown in Saturday night's popular Slam Dunk Competition.
The rookies kept their foot on the throttle in the second half and stayed in front. Westbrook buried back-to-back threes to pull the sophomores to 116-108 with 5:40 remaining. However, Evans followed with a three-point play at the other end, and Blair scored the final six with 48 seconds remaining to end the drought.
