Wolves guard J.J. Barea, bothered by a sprained left foot in Minnesota's loss in Houston Thursday, is questionable for Sunday's game with Phoenix at Target Center.

"It's better," said Barea, who did not take part in the team's practice Saturday. "It's a sprain. I had it checked out (Friday), to make sure it wasn't a stress fracture. It's better. Hopefully it will be better (Sunday). I'm going to get a good warmup, a good workout before the game, and see how it feels."

Barea said the foot – the same one that he hurt running into the scorer's table last season – has been bothering him for about a week, getting steadily worse. He woke up Thursday in Houston with the foot very sore and was unable to do much in that night's game.

Meanwhile, Wolves coach Rick Adelman said center Nikola Pekovic's sore ankle was feeling better, but he did not do much in Saturday's practice and is doubtful for Sunday's game. Backup center Ronny Turiaf (knee) and guard A.J. Price (appendectomy) are out. That means if Barea cannot play Sunday against the Suns, Alexey Shved would become the backup point guard.

Some other tidbits from Saturday's workout:

--Wolves coach Rick Adelman said he went up to Pekovic on the plane right home from Houston – where rookie Gorgui Dieng had scored 22 points with 21 rebounds – and asked him if he'd ever heard of Wally Pipp. "That was a big mistake," Adelman said. "Because he'd never heard of Wally Pipp and he'd never heard of Lou Gehrig. The lesson kind of lost its meaning."

--Barea was jokingly asked if the attempted tip-dunk of a Ricky Rubio miss in Wednesday's victory in Dallas was the reason for his sore foot. After all, the relatively diminutive Barea doesn't get that far off the ground very often.

"That's the first time I was hanging on the rim," Barea said. "I was just surprised. I surprised myself, I'm telling you. It was like, 'What am I doing up here?' It was fun."

That's about it for now. I'll get back to you from tomorrow's game.