Charlotte Hornets lose in final minutes to LeBron-less Philadelphia 76ers

Halloween brought an unwelcome present to all of those who sold out Spectrum Center Saturday night hoping to see LeBron James suit up for his new team — the 41-year-old Philadelphia 76er didn’t play.

Then came the trick — the 76ers won anyway, 109-104, over the Charlotte Hornets.

James sat out on the second night of a back-to-back for Philadelphia, much to the chagrin of a crowd of 19,533, many of whom showed up in Halloween costumes hoping to watch one of the greatest players of all time.

Charlotte led for most of the game, including by seven points at 101-94 with 3:41 left, only to completely collapse in the late stages as Philadelphia went on a game-sealing 13-0 run. Ill-advised shots and turnovers were the main culprits for the Hornets, along with Philadelphia’s electric guard Tyrese Maxey, who scored 38 points and was the best player on the floor all night.

“I think we had a couple of times where we kind of forgot ourselves,” Charlotte center Moussa Diabate said. “Maybe felt rushed because of the moment.... We should have been more mature at the end of the game.”

The Hornets (3-4) have now lost three games in a row and, oddly, now sport the same record as the Carolina Panthers. Philadelphia improved to 6-1.

Grayson Allen (27 points) and Brandon Miller (24) led the Hornets. Allen went 7-for-10 on three-pointers during the game, including a rainbow 36-footer near halftime. But he didn’t get a shot in the final 3:41 as the Hornets lost their seven-point lead.

During the time where the Hornets were losing their lead, their shot selection and ballhandling was awful. In one 90-second stretch, Diabate and Naz Reid committed turnovers and Dennis Schroder tried twice in a row to shoot contested layups over much taller players, only to have them both blocked. Shortly after that, Sion James missed an uncontested reverse layup right after VJ Edgecombe nailed a three-pointer for Philadelphia, and that was pretty much that.

The game had several heated sequences.

In one, Allen and Philadelphia’s Jaylen Brown were assessed a double technical in the fourth quarter after a scrum for a loose ball.

“We were just both fighting for the ball, and both gave a little bit extra after the whistle and, probably fairly, both assessed techs,” Allen said.

The Hornets have been a streaky team this season. They lost their home opener by 47 points and also went into the evening having posted the two lowest scores in the NBA this season — 81 and 79 points, the latter coming Friday night in a desultory loss at Washington.

But Charlotte has also had some nice wins and looked like they were going to add this one to their tally, until Philadelphia badly outplayed them late.

The Hornets came out scalding hot in the first quarter, leading 37-27 after the period ended and shooting better than 70%. By halftime, though, Philadelphia led by three as the Hornets cooled off.

Maxey had 19 for the 76ers by halftime. Brown, the other Philadelphia star who was playing, missed his first five shots and had an off night by his standards, scoring 16 on 6-of-15 shooting.

Not only did Philadelphia not play LeBron (officially out not for load management, but for lower back and sciatica management), but standout center Joel Embiid (plantar fascia injury management) was out, too.

Then again, Charlotte was missing two starters for the seventh straight game: Kon Knueppel (hamstring) and Coby White (calf strain) each have yet to play a minute this season. They seem to be edging closer to a debut, but it’s hard to tell when that’s going to happen.

So you could have made a team from the players who were missing that could have beaten either of the teams on the court: Embiid at center, LeBron at power forward, White at point, Knueppel at shooting guard and Grant Williams (also out with a hamstring) at small forward.

Hornets-76ers notes

The Hornets next play another home game Monday against Detroit, a team that already beat them on Oct. 28. It was in that game that head coach Charles Lee benched Naz Reid in the second half for, as he would say later in a TV interview, not upholding the Hornets’ “standard.” Lee said Saturday that he and Reid had since had a good conversation and “accountability was taken by Naz.” Lee refused to divulge exactly what had happened or been said for him to decide to bench Reid, but said the incident was over and done with. Reid has started the two games since, and in this game had 14 points but also four turnovers.

The game’s most startling shot came from Allen, the former Duke standout who was feeling confident late in the second quarter after already scoring 16 points in the first half. Allen let go of a logo three that was officially listed at 36 feet — and swished it with his regular shooting motion. He said because the Hornets were in a 2-for-1 shooting situation the shot was a “little bit of a freebie... I knew I could get one off and nobody would say anything….” Philadelphia had played and beaten the New York Knicks, the defending NBA champions, the day before.

This story was originally published October 31, 2026 at 8:57 PM with the headline "Charlotte Hornets lose in final minutes to LeBron-less Philadelphia 76ers."

Scott Fowler

The Charlotte Observer

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Columnist Scott Fowler has written for The Charlotte Observer since 1994 and has earned 26 APSE awards for his sportswriting. He hosted The Observer’s podcast “Carruth,” which Sports Illustrated once named “Podcast of the Year.” Fowler also conceived and hosted the online series and podcast “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” which featured 1-on-1 interviews with NC and SC sports icons and was turned into a book. He occasionally writes about non-sports subjects, such as the 5-part series “9/11/74,” which chronicled the forgotten plane crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 in Charlotte on Sept. 11, 1974. Support my work with a digital subscription