Coach Sam Mitchell has an interesting way of motivating the Timberwolves.

Tuesday, after practice, Mitchell talked with the media about what second-year guard/forward Andrew Wiggins needs to do to be more successful.

The short list: Mitchell said his starters need to score more. And, with Kevin Garnett and Tayshaun Prince starting to give the team some defensive juice to start games, that means more will fall on the shoulders of Wiggins, Ricky Rubio and rookie center Karl-Anthony Towns.

"We're just not scoring," he said of his first unit. "We're doing a great job getting to the free-throw line. But we're not scoring our two and three-point field goals. We're not getting enough of that. We worked today getting out and spacing. We've got to create more space for our guards. We're having to run too many sets.''

And, Mitchell said, Wiggins has to be more assertive.

Then, when Mitchell was finished with that, he walked back onto the court and challenged Wiggins to a shooting contest. And he won. Think he gave Wiggins a bit of a hard time over that one?

Some other items from today:

--For the first time since his April surgery on his Achilles tendon, center Nikola Pekovic did some light running.

--Monday's loss to the Blazers was due, in large part, to inopportune fouls. "We just made some bad fouls," Mitchell said. "The foul in the backcourt 94 feet away, the foul at the three-point line when they're not trying to make a penetrating pass. We just did some bad things. Running up, jamming the ball and letting them get behind us, those are all mental things we've got to clean up. ''