"Heat" in wrestling refers to the ability to get strong crowd reactions. If a wrestler has a lot of heat, that person will be on the receiving end of loud cheers or boos. Oftentimes you associate "a lot of heat" with a heel, a bad guy who is greeted with sneers and taunts and chants.
If you're in the building for a segment that involves a heel with a lot of heat, it's really fun. It also makes you appreciate just how loud the crowd can get when almost every single person is making noise.
In the spirit of offering up an example that has crossover appeal with wrestling and sports fans, listen to the crowd during this WWE segment in Seattle. Elias and Kevin Owens poke fun at the departed Seattle Supersonics, and the building shakes with disapproval.
I went to Target Center this past Saturday night for the Minnesota Timberwolves versus the Denver Nuggets. Throughout the game, Denver's backup center Jonas Valančiūnas earned the ire of the hometown crowd. As befits a rugged bench player, he mixed it up down low, made some tough plays, and tangled up with a couple Timberwolves.
At one point, Valančiūnas and Timberwolves' reserve Naz Reid engaged in a little shoving match. Nothing more than the tension one expects to see in a rivalry game, but certainly a moment that added "big Val" to the ranks of villains in the eyes of the Minneapolis crowd.
Now let me tell you about the "Bricken for Chicken" promotion. In partnership with Chick-fil-A, the Timberwolves run the following deal during home games: if a player on the opposing team misses two free throws in a row in the fourth quarter, everyone gets a free chicken sandwich.
In an action-packed game that was important to both teams, there were loud reactions from the crowd all night. It was a fired up crowd that wanted the home team to win their fifth straight game. That said, the heat in that building went way up in the fourth quarter.
You had the occasional standing ovation over the course of the game to that point, with a mix of fans standing and sitting. It was loud, but not everyone yelled or stood up. But when Jonas Valančiūnas stepped to the free throw line in the fourth quarter? Not a Timberwolves fan in sight was sitting down. Everyone stood. Everyone yelled. It was really loud.
Big Val missed his first free throw. The Minneapolis faithful could taste it. A chicken sandwich was in their future. It would be worth it to wait until Monday, with the chain famously closed on Sundays. They rocked the Target Center to coax a second miss out of the Nuggets' backup center.
It was the loudest the building had been all night, and that includes a really cool pregame production on "Prince night."
Jonas Valančiūnas calmly swished the second free throw home. Cementing his status as a heel on this night, he gave the crowd the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag.
The heat in the building reached a level worthy of the best bad guys in wrestling. Just look at this young fan's reaction.
This young Wolves fan is very upset that Jonas Valanciunas made the 2nd free throw to deny fans a free chicken sandwich
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero.bsky.social) 2025-11-16T03:13:01.148Z
It's an interesting dynamic, the spike in crowd noise from this promotion. I suppose it's as simple as fans cheering when they might get something out of it. If they are loud at other points in the game, they only get the lofty and abstract feeling of pride if their team plays well. But if they are loud in these very specific moments, they might get a chicken sandwich.
There's some credit due to the people behind the promotion, at least the people on the Timberwolves' side of things. Much like a wrestling promoter or an individual wrestler putting together a promo, those people are charged with identifying and implementing ideas to fire up the crowd. In this case, they found a way to maximize the noise and to hold those big pops for the fourth quarter.
After all, even in an important regular season game, there was a certain levity to the whole "Bricken for Chicken" situation. Big Val was able to take a chance to joke around and taunt the crowd, something he might not do in an actual playoff game. But the promotion presumably continues apace in the actual postseason when those fourth quarter free throws are an even bigger deal.
I suppose the team doesn't care why the crowd rocks the house in those key moments. As long as they will stand and boo and jeer for each and every fourth quarter free throw from the opposing team, the promotion will be successful for the Timberwolves.
That's exactly what happened on Saturday night. It was another successful "Bricken for Chicken" promotion, even if it might have left Naz Reid wondering why it wasn't that loud when he got shoved by the other team.
