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.

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 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, as was Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey, who scored 38 points and was the best player on the floor all night.

The Hornets (3-4) have now lost three games in a row. Philadelphia improved to 6-1.

Grayson Allen (27 points) and Brandon Miller (24) led the Hornets, who also got 10 points and eight rebounds from Moussa Diabate.

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 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. Jaylen Brown, the other Philadelphia star who was playing, missed his first five shots and had an off night by his standards, scoring 16.

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.

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…. Philadelphia had played and beaten the New York Knicks, the defending NBA champions, the day before.