Anthony Tolliver looked active at practice Tuesday afternoon.

He wore a knee brace, but was cutting and moving well working alone with an assistant coach near the end of practice.

"He's getting a lot better," Kurt Rambis said. "He said he feels good. He's doing a lot of cutting, stopping, starting, angular work off his knee and he looks good."

Rambis said he doesn't know when Tolliver will be ready to play -- he strained a knee ligament on Dec. 3 at San Antonio -- but you can bet it will be well ahead of that "late January" date the team's injury updates have been reporting.

Conceivably, it could be as early as sometime this week.

A couple other things:

* Carmelo Anthony is missing his fourth consecutive game for the Nuggets tonight in Denver following the death of his sister. No word yet whether he will accompany the team to Minneapolis after tonight's game against Portland or meet it here in the Twin Cities in time to play Wednesday night against Wolves. Nuggets are 0-3 so far without him.

* Interesting little "Coach's Corner" video on the Nuggets web site regarding late-game situations. A Nuggets assistant coach specifically addresses the Wolves' game there in Denver earlier this month when Rambis chose not to foul with just three seconds differential between shot and game clock.

Denver assistant Chad Iske said their rule of thumb is don't foul if it's five seconds or more, do if it's less than that.

Here's the video.

* And...I will be doing a live chat Wednesday afternoon at 12:30 to preview that night's Nuggets game and answer any and all Wolves/NBA questions you might have.

Don't think we've done one since opening day, so get your questions ready and follow the link on www.startribune.com as 12:30 approaches tomorrow.