It was a very frustrated Nikola Pekovic who – after watching but not participating in the Wolves' morning shoot – talked about that sore right foot/ankle that could keep him out of tonight's game.

Still sore, Pekovic said he would decide on his availability for the game after trying to warm up pre-game.

"We'll see," he said.

But, one way or another, this injury – something that has been bothering Pekovic for a long time -- is going to impact the rest of this season, at least. It could be that the stretch run this year will be much like last season's, when the soreness caused Pekovic to miss 28 of the final 38 games. Even if he's able to manage the pain and return, Pekovic said that some sort of minutes limit will have to be enforced by coach Flip Saunders.

"I'm going to have to go back on that [minutes limit]," he said. "I'm not really happy with that. But if that's going to be help me get through the season, probably Flip's going to do it.''

That said, Pekovic sounded like a man fed up with the process. All it took was a simple question: How frustrated are you? "A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot," he said. "It's been a long, long, long, long time. A year. I've almost been a year dealing with this. It's going up and down. It was better during the summer. When you kind of rest it, it's always better. But you start working….

"It's kind of tough, mentally, to have to go through all this. You want to play, but it just doesn't let you. Your foot doesn't let you go. … It's just tough dealing with this every day.''

Pekovic has tried stretching. He has tried modifying his warm-up routing. He said today that he has taken shots for the inflammation. After the season he said he will seek more opinions from specialists on how to deal with this ongoing problem. "Right after the season is done, I'll try to figure out what to do," he said.

Here are some other notes from this morning:

--Shooting guard Kevin Martin missed the shootaround due to illness, and he is listed as questionable for tonight's game with the Clippers.

--Those 1,000 tickets Kevin Garnett bought for fans were scooped up in about 3 minutes this morning. It was, Garnett said, the least he could do. "Just a way of showing my appreciation," Garnett said. "I'm always looking to be innovative, try things from an original standpoint. I'm excited to be back here. And, though I can't thank everybody, in appreciation I liked to show some type of gesture. And this is the way I chose to show it.''

--But on the subject of his two technical and his ejection from Saturday's loss to Memphis Garnett was less loquacious. "That's over with," he said. "I'm not speaking on that."

That's about all for now. I'll get back to you before the game.