Media MonsterNASCARNBA

What Happened Last Night: Danica Patrick Finished 8th At The Daytona 500, Lakers Edge Out The Mavericks

by Dylan Murphy | 10:27 am, February 25th, 2013

So, as you might’ve heard, our friends at RotoExperts and your trusty SportsGrid folk are combining forces. Okay, so this might not have happened last night, per se, but we figured we should probably tell some people.

Danica Patrick finished 8th at the Daytona 500.

Yeah, we didn’t watch the Daytona 500 either – there’s something about watching cars drive in ovals for three hours that’s, well, unappealing. But, as we’ve heard, Danica Patrick, who won the pre-race pole, was in 3rd place on the final lap with a chance at victory. Though she ended up sliding back to 8th, she still became the first woman to finish in the top 10 at Daytona.

Oh, and Jimmie Johnson won the race, his second career win at Daytona with the first coming in 2006. But this Daytona 500 will not be remembered for Jimmie Johnson or the winner or anything else, really. This one was about Danica Patrick from start to finish, and her performance will be weirdly poked and prodded because she’s a woman. And that leads to its whole own set of other problems, namely whether she’s judged as a pioneer for women in a typically male-dominate sport, or just one of the guys. But no matter how we dissect her career, she’ll still be the focal point of the post-race conversation.

Kobe Bryant scored 38 points as Los Angeles beat Dallas.

“Lakers win big game over non-playoff contender.” Six months ago, who thought that would be a legitimate headline? Kobe Bryant had 38 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists, including a flurry of horrible-turned-ridiculous Kobe shots that kept his team in it. Dirk countered with 30 points and a season-high 13 rebounds of his own, but the Dallas offense couldn’t quite keep up. The Lakers are now a mere 2.5 games back of 8th seed Houston, and with 25 games to play, Los Angeles’ playoff hopes are alive and well.

Also of note: after the game, Kobe finally responded to that whole Mark Cuban amnesty thing with a short, but powerful tweet: